Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

KING'S LYNN CORPORATION BILL [Lords]

GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (MONEY) BILL

Read a Second time and committed.

ZETLAND COUNTY COUNCIL BILL

Ordered,
That any Committee to which the Zetland County Council Bill may be referred by the Committee of Selection have power to adjourn from place to place.—[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Oral Answers to Questions — SOCIAL SERVICES

Hospitals (Private Patients)

Mr. Leslie Huckfield: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will make a statement about the procedures used for the financial accounting for, and monitoring of, private patients in National Health Service hospitals.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Michael Alison): It is the responsibility of hospital authorities to make arrangements to ensure that accommodation and services are made available for private patients within the extent authorised, that private patients give an undertaking to pay the appropriate hospital charges and to ensure that these charges are collected. These arrangements are subject to examination by the Department's auditors.

Mr. Huckfield: How can the Secretary of State come to conclusions of the kind that he does in his reply to the Select Committee—namely, that private practice benefits the National Health Service— when all the evidence submitted to the Select Committee, especially by the Birmingham Regional Hospital Board, shows that there is no standardised form of accounting or monitoring of private practice in hospitals? Will the Department now give very serious consideration to the introduction of a system of accounting whereby private patients are charged for every item and service of which they make use in hospitals?

Mr. Alison: It was the conclusion of the Select Committee of the House itself that private practice operated to the overall benefit of the National Health Service. But my right hon. Friend said that he accepted one of the recommendations of the Select Committee, namely, that control procedures in hospitals should be more strictly observed.

Mr. Fernyhough: Since the hon. Gentleman says that it is left to regional hospital boards to monitor and fix charges, can he say what are the differences in the various regions, and will he publish a list in HANSARD SO that hon. Members can compare one board with another in this respect?

Mr. Alison: I shall certainly consider the right hon. Gentleman's request in detail and see whether I can help him at all.

Disability Income

Mr. Costain: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what steps he is taking towards the development of a disability income.

Dr. Trafford: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what steps he is taking towards the development of a disability income.

The Secretary of State for Social Services (Sir Keith Joseph): As I told the Disablement Income Group at its annual general meeting last Saturday, the results of research, DIG's own publications and the experience of other countries are all being fed into a thorough review in which administrators, economists, statisticians and doctors are engaged, and in which


my Department is co-operating with other Departments. This should provide a firm basis for the development of future policy.

Mr. Costain: I welcome my right hon. Friend's announcement. Is he satisfied, however, that he will deal with those disabled who need the greatest sympathy, namely, disabled housewives? Will the review study what special consideration can be given to them?

Sir K. Joseph: Yes. Again as I told DIG on Saturday, the Government regard the disabled housewife as deserving special priority, and the study will have her very much in mind.

Mr. Ewing: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that reviews are notorious for the length of time they take? There may be some small comfort to the disabled arising from the review that the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned, but will he say whether he accepts the need for a disability income and, if so, whether he expects within a reasonable time to introduce measures into this House to provide for a disability income?

Sir K. Joseph: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that an inquiry can put a subject to sleep for some time. But the Government's credentials in introducing attendance allowance in their very first Bill and then extending it before the higher rate was fully in payment establish our right to study fully the alternatives before us. The disability income covers a number of possible approaches on which DIG itself is not in accord. That is why a study is necessary so that we can decide the next sensible steps.

Dr. Trafford: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is some urgency about this? Whether a person is disabled by injury at work for which he is covered or in any other way, or is chronically sick, he is none the less disabled, and the provision of disability income would help him and also simplify the administration of the many other benefits which are available for the disabled.

Sir K. Joseph: Yes, I agree with that, but the Government are trying to put right the virtual neglect of generations. While on both sides of the House we are naturally impatient, it is right to work out sensible priorities.

Mr. Alfred Morris: The right hon. Gentleman will have seen the Press headlines at the weekend arising from his speech which suggested that nelp for disabled housewives was on the way. How soon will this help be available? May we take it that the right hon. Gentleman at least agrees with the principle of a national disability income as proposed by DIG?

Sir K. Joseph: I must inflict on the hon. Gentleman a copy of my 27-page speech from which he can draw his own conclusions. I will send him one.

Miss Quennell: Before he inflicts his 27-page speech on the hon. Gentleman, will my right hon. Friend consider the difficulty of the definition of "disability" in this context?

Sir K. Joseph: Yes. It does not help if we put together into the same group the severely, the very severely and the appreciably disabled, the mentally disabled, the physically disabled and those with particular disabilities such as deafness or arthritis. We have to study the subject, as the Government are doing, on the basis of all the work that has been done, including visits by officials to six countries in Europe, so as to arrive at a sensible set of practical priorities.

Mrs. Castle: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the opportunity of moving towards the immediate payment of a disablement income arises on the Social Security Bill which will be before the House this afternoon? Are we to take it that his decision instead to set up an inquiry merely means that the Government are anxious to buy time and have missed that bus?

Sir K. Joseph: No. The right hon. Lady knows that there are other issues at stake in the Bill which we shall be debating later. The Government have to their credit the paying out of what by the end of next year will be £100 million a year to the civil disabled that was not being paid at all when the Government came to office. We are entitled to study the alternatives before us.

Meals on Wheels

Mr. Kinsey: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what progress


has been made in increasing the numbers of meals on wheels served.

Mr. Alison: During a sample week in November 1972, over 378,000 meals were served by or on behalf of local authorities to 135,000 people in their own homes. This represents a 17 per cent. increase in the numbers of meals provided over the previous year and a 13 per cent. increase in the number of people served. A further 221,000 meals were provided in clubs or centres, 19 per cent. more than in the previous year. In each case these are record increases.

Mr. Kinsey: My hon. Friend has given us wonderful news. Is he considering the possibility of getting more volunteers to help in taking round the meals, as this would be extremely useful to the people who administer the scheme?

Mr. Alison: We are extremely dependent upon voluntary workers for this service and my right hon. Friend and I have repeatedly paid tribute to the enormous contribution they make. We have recognised their special rôle by considerably increasing central Government financial support for the national headquarters of voluntary organisations.

Family Planning

Sir G. Sinclair: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether an advertising campaign will be used to publicise the increased availability of family planning supplies from 1974.

Mr. Alison: As my right hon. Friend said in his statement to the House on 12th December, he will be making increased funds available for the purposes of education and training, and information of the public about the new service. —[Vol. 848, c. 234-40.] My Department will be in touch with the Health Education Council about an increase in its activity in this field, and the guidance which will be issued to area health authorities will cover the question of publicity at the local level.

Sir G. Sinclair: Is the Minister aware that, with the great increase in the services available under his proposals, it will be even more important than it has been in the past to use advertising as one of the means of spreading knowledge of the availability of these services, because

wherever advertising has been used in conjunction with a free service we have achieved the maximum take-up by those least able to afford the full costs?

Mr. Alison: Yes, I take my hon. Friend's point. The take-up was significant in areas where no free services were supplied but where, on the contrary, a massive effort was made to increase the publicity for a charged service. I entirely share my hon. Friend's anxiety and determination that money should be well spent on increased advertising.

Mrs. Renée Short: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, if we are to get the greatest advantage from the increased propaganda for family planning which we all want to see, we need many more general practitioners and doctors generally to be qualified to teach birth control techniques? What is the Minister doing to ensure that all medical students are instructed in these techniques?

Mr. Alison: We have this under review. Even more important will be the negotiation, as part of their terms of service, with general practitioners about the possibility of becoming more actively and formally involved in the process of advising, prescribing, and, if necessary, treating in matters of family planning.

Pensioners (Heating Installations)

Mr. Roger White: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will ask the Supplementary Benefits Commission to consider making grants for the installation of all-night heaters for pensioners.

Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will ask the Supplementary Benefits Commission to consider making grants for the installation of all-night storage heaters for penioners.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Paul Dean): The commission can already make payments for this purpose under its discretionary powers.

Mr. White: I acknowledge my hon. Friend's reply and the Government's concern for pensioners, particularly during inclement weather, but will he give the House further information about the availability of electric blankets for elderly people who suffer from low temperatures?

Mr. Dean: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that suggestion, although it may involve safety problems. I am sure that the whole House welcomes the practical suggestions that my hon. Friend has made. A number of considerations are now being actively looked into by the Government, local authorities and voluntary organisations in an effort to try to find a variety of ways to improve heating arrangements for elderly people.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: How many old people will die as a result of the Government's refusal last week to allow more discussion of a Bill that would have given heating allowances to all the old people who are at risk? Is not the real problem the hypocrisy of the Government in pursuing this subject piecemeal?

Mr. Dean: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman feels it right to use emotive language on such a serious subject. He must know that the Government, with the help of local authorities and voluntary bodies, have done far more than have any other Government to deal with this deep-seated problem.

Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that night storage heaters are a particularly safe form of heating for the elderly? When he is next in discussion with the Chairman of the Supplementary Benefits Commission, will he bear in mind the maxim that a word to the wise is sufficient?

Mr. Dean: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but she will appreciate that the powers of the commission are fairly limited in this respect but substantial powers are available to local authorities. About 400,000 additional people will benefit from the improved heating arrangements which the Government intend to introduce before next winter.

Mr. O'Malley: Bearing in mind that the system of heating allowances through the commission is still inadequate in spite of the changes recently announced by the Government, and that the commission has discretion to make grants, will the hon. Gentleman ensure that the commission's discretion is more generously exercised than it is at present?

Mr. Dean: Yes, I assure the hon. Gentleman that the commission is very exercised on this matter. Not only is

it doing, and intending to do, all it can to assist more people, but it is also working in close co-operation with local authorities and voluntary organisations which are also doing a great deal to improve the arrangements.

Illegal Exploitation

Mr. Ralph Howell: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will institute proceedings against organisations which publicise methods of illegally exploiting social security benefits and services, details of which are in his possession.

Mr. Norman Lamont: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will institute proceedings against organisations which publicise methods of illegally exploiting social security benefits and services, details of which are in his possession.>

Sir K. Joseph: No, Sir. I am advised that the publication my hon. Friends have in mind contains nothing to justify either civil or criminal proceedings. Provision already exists for prosecuting fraudulent claimants of supplementary benefit.

Mr. Howell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I am disappointed with that reply? Does he realise that there is growing public concern that false and misleading information printed by organisations such as the Claimants Union is suggesting ways of exploiting and disrupting our very generous social system? Is he further aware that a great number of people right across the political spectrum are annoyed and disturbed at this?

Sir K. Joseph: I do not wonder that there is this feeling which my hon. Friend describes. The handbook to which I believe he refers is one to be deplored. It advocates a most tendentious and mischievous approach which is deliberately calculated to provoke ill feeling between potential claimants and the staff in my Department's local offices. I am glad that the Supplementary Benefits Commission has issued an authoritative leaflet putting the record straight. This has been made available through the offices to all who might be concerned.

Mr. William Hamilton: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the alleged


abuse in this area is chicken-feed compared with the abuse which takes place through the evasion of income tax and all the rest? Will he ask his right hon. Friends to be as energetic in pursuing these defaulters as he and his committee have been in investigating the defaulters in social security benefits, the number of which is highly marginal? Is he aware that the number of prosecutions is small compared with the number of prosecutions by the Inland Revenue of wealthy taxpayers?

Sir K. Joseph: My hon. Friends, and a great number of people throughout the country who agree with them, have a right to be aggrieved when people not only damage the innocent public by strikes but in addition are led, by the Claimants Union in many cases to a hectoring approach to public officials who are carrying out their humane duty. This is thoroughly deplorable.

Home Nursing Service

Mr. Redmond: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he is satisfied that the home nursing service will be maintained at present standards in the period between local government losing its health powers and the new health authorities taking over.

Sir K. Joseph: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Redmond: Can my right hon. Friend tell us what will be the length of this interregnum period? Does he agree that any change causes unsettle-ment in the minds of people employed in such organisations? Can he do something to remove any unease in the minds of people employed in this service?

Sir K. Joseph: There should be no interregnum. The transition will have been prepared for months. The number of home nurses is, I am glad to say, rising at a record level.

Disabled Children (Rowntree Trust)

Dr. Vaughan: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what plans he has in relation to the amount of money available to the Rowntree Trust to assist disabled children.

Mr. Alison: I have nothing to add to the statement which my right hon. Friend

made during the debate on 29th November last about the provision of additional money for the fund.

Dr. Vaughan: Would my hon. Friend agree that there is a great deal of interest not only among the general public but among professional organisations about how this money is being distributed and what criteria are being used in its distribution? Would it not be helpful if the Rowntree Trust gave more information?

Mr. Alison: I am glad to reassure my hon. Friend. The trust has distributed 20,000 of its explanatory leaflets to local authorities, voluntary bodies and individuals and is about to distribute a further 10,000. It has also received a large number of written and telephoned inquiries which suggest that the publicity is getting across.

Mr. Alfred Morris: How did the Government arrive at the figure of £3 million as the amount of this fund? How many children will benefit? How can we possibly judge the adequacy of the fund if we do not know how many children will benefit?

Mr. Alison: It is a useful start. The hon. Gentleman will recall, in the context of the thalidomide children, that it is possible when these cases have been settled out of court that consideration might be given to the question of an additional fund.

Hospital Patients (Consultant Cover)

Mrs. Renée Short: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what steps he is taking to ensure that all patients in National Health Service hospitals have full consultant cover.

Sir K. Joseph: All in-patients in National Health Service hospitals have a consultant responsible for their treatment, except for certain general practitioner hospitals or units. The number of consultants is being steadily increased, and hospital authorities' programmes provide for over 400 new consultant posts to be established in the 12 months up to March 1974.

Mrs. Short: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the affluent South East


there is the highest concentration of consultants per 100,000 of the population? Is he further aware that about 835 consultant posts are vacant and that many regions are not getting the cover which he claims? Does he appreciate that even if he gets his 400 extra consultants they will still not fill all the vacant posts?

Sir K. Joseph: I hope that I am not being at all complacent. There is certainly a thin coverage in some areas and I am particularly worried about the shortage against the growing recognition of specialties such as geriatrics. The number of vacancies does not reflect the real position because many of the vacancies are covered by locums. We are doing our very best to increase the number of specialists in the specialties where there are shortages.

Dr. Summerskill: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider linking merit awards, which involve millions of pounds a year, to special consultant posts where there is a shortage, such as in psychiatry and geriatics, and to those areas of the country which are short of consultants, rather than giving merit awards to unknown doctors for unnamed reasons?

Sir K. Joseph: It would be wrong for me to undertake to consider the use of awards which are designed to reward merit for other purposes. That is not to say that the Government are not anxious to fill the vacancies in the specialties and in the regions.

Insurance Cards (Casual Workers)

Mr. Dixon: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will consider legislation to place a statutory liability on employers to ensure that an employee, when applying for casual work, either produces his insurance card or produces a receipt from his employer confirming that that employer has the insurance card in his possession.

Mr. Dean: There is already a statutory requirement on every employer to obtain a card from an employee for whom he is liable to pay contributions. It would not be appropriate to extend this so as to impose a similar obligation on employers who are not required to pay contributions.

Mr. Dixon: Would not my hon. Friend agree that some such measure would go a long way to removing the abuses which are being practised by thousands of "spivs" and fiddlers who obtain money from the Supplementary Benefits Commission and at the same time work on the side—and who are now apparently to be given cheap butter too?

Mr. Dean: The arrangements about insurance cards should ensure that those who should be paying do so along with their employers. As my hon. Friend knows, I have been asked by my right hon. Friend to take a particular interest in the methods by which we detect abuse. If he has any particular information which he thinks will be helpful, I will be happy to have it from him.

Cigarette Smoking

Sir G. Nabarro: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what evidence he has that cigarette smoking in the United Kingdom has declined during the two years ended in March 1973, following his special provisions, including the health warnings on cigarette packets and attendant matters; and whether he will make a statement.

Sir K. Joseph: There is little that I can yet add to my reply to my hon. Friend on 6th February about the changes in the amount of cigarette smoking in the last two years.—[Vol. 850, c. 200–1.]
The information I published recently about the tar and nicotine yields of brands of cigarettes sold in the United Kingdom should help and encourage those who are unable to give up cigarette smoking to smoke less dangerously.

Sir G. Nabarro: My right hon. Friend continues to procrastinate about this. Is he not aware that over the last few years it has become quite obvious that to all concerned with promoting the non-smoking campaign that there is a deep divide between himself and myself? He prefers the non-legislative approach while I prefer the legislative approach. Since we have now failed absolutely to make any impact on cigarette smoking, and since all the evidence is that we have made no impact, will he not reconsider his earlier shibboleths and make an investment in legislation?

Sir K. Joseph: I fear that I am not considering legislation. I hate to disappoint my hon. Friend, whose enthusiasm I share. There are a couple of hopeful signs. First, we must give the new tar and nicotine yield tables time to assert what I hope will be a rational hold on the mind of the smoking public. Second, there has been a rise in the proportion of adults who are non-smokers as revealed in the 1971 figures.

Mr. Pavitt: Is it not a fact that each time the Royal College of Physicians has issued a report on the subject the amount of smoking has decreased, but that already the impact of the last report has been absorbed and the extent of smoking is rising again? Is it not time the Secretary of State took more stringent action in this regard? Is it not also a fact that the publicising of nicotine and tar contents merely changes the kind of cigarette smoked and not the amount of content consumed, and that the growth of emphysema and chest diseases indicates the need for much stronger action on the right hon. Gentleman's part?

Sir K. Joseph: We shall not begin to be able to judge the effect of the tar and nicotine yield tables for some months, but if they shift the choice of smokers towards the lower tar and nicotine yield content cigarettes the hon. Gentleman's fears will not be realised and there will be a smaller amount of dangerous substances being smoked.

Mr. Idris Owen: Does my right hon. Friend agree, in view of the hopeful signs he has indicated this afternoon, that if we encourage the owners of public and private establishments and of transport to allocate greater areas for non-smokers, that might act as an additional deterrent to those who wish to smoke continuously?

Sir K. Joseph: I am sure that my hon. Friend is right. There are hopeful signs in transport and in some entertainment establishments, but I think my hon. Friend will agree that we cannot go too far ahead of public opinion, because then we may run into enforcement difficulties.

Reserve Pension Scheme Contributions

Sir B. Rhys Williams: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what

representations he has received in regard to the tax treatment of beneficiaries' contributions to the proposed State Reserve Pension Scheme.

Mr. Dean: I have had a small number of representations in favour of tax relief being given on employees' contributions to the reserve pension scheme, but it has also been represented to me that the effect would be to handicap our efforts to maximise the membership of recognised occupational pension schemes.

Sir B. Rhys Williams: Has my right hon. Friend received representations from the Life Offices Association and the National Association of Pension Funds? Would I be right in believing that neither of those bodies has specifically asked for the tax bias to be brought back against members of the reserve pension scheme?

Mr. Dean: We have been in close touch with all organisations interested in these matters in the formative stages of the arrangements for the Bill which is now before the House.

Mr. George Cunningham: Will the Minister confirm that a document is passing around the House showing that the Government invited the views of the CBI on the subject following their defeat in Standing Committee on it? Did they at the same time invite the views of the TUC?

Mr. Dean: I have a number of responsibilities, but I do not think that one of them is documents circulating in the House.

Mr. O'Malley: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that if he has received only a small number of representations on the subject, which is perhaps untypical of the experience of other hon. Members, that could mean only either that members of the public are in despair of earning any kind of social justice between one side of the community and the other from the present Government or that they believe it inconceivable that the Government should attempt to overturn a decision taken by a large majority of backbenchers?

Mr. Dean: It could be because the country generally realises that the Bill represents a major advance in pension provision, both present and future, for the people of this country.

Bexhill Hospital (Casualty Unit)

Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what consideration he has given to the future of the casualty unit at the hospital at Bexhill-on-Sea.

Mr. Alison: None so far, Sir; no proposal has as yet been put to my right hon. Friend. The South East Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board is, however, seeking his approval to carrying out local consultation on the future of this unit.

Mr. Godman Irvine: Has my hon. Friend directed the attention of my right hon. Friend to the petition presented to the House in March, which was supported by at least one-third of the population of Bexhill? Is he aware that the letter he was good enough to write to me in April gave the impression that he was thinking that Bexhill's was a declining population, which it is not? It probably has the highest population over the age of 65 in Europe. Is not that something that should receive careful consideration? In particular, has my hon. Friend considered the possibility of using retired doctors on a rota basis?

Mr. Alison: Yes, Sir. All these possibilities have been and are being considered, but my hon. Friend will know that no proposal to close the Bexhill casualty department is before my right hon. Friend yet for decision.

Homeless Persons (London)

Mr. Thomas Cox: asked the Secretary of Social Services what recent discussion he has had with the London Boroughs Association on the question of homelessness in London.

Sir K. Joseph: My hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction and I met the London Boroughs Association, with the Greater London Council, in January to discuss progress in implementing the recommendations of the first report by the joint working party on homeless-ness in London, and practical ways of reducing family homelessness and making more dwellings available to meet the need. Maximum use of unoccupied and short-life property was among the matters discussed. The suggestions made at the meeting are being followed up and a

working party has been set up to improve the information collected about homelessness. We shall be glad to meet the London authorities again as soon as they are ready.

Mr. Cox: While I welcome that statement, may I ask whether the Minister is fully aware of the extent of homelessness in London? Is he aware that it increases week by week, generally because of the vicious activities of certain landlords and property developers? That is what is causing homelessness, which in its wake presents many problems to local authorities. What financial help does the right hon. Gentleman intend to give to local authorities in the London area which are facing the expense of providing accommodation for people once they have been hounded out of their home?

Sir K. Joseph: I certainly agree about, and am well aware of, the distressing amount of homelessness in London. One of the recommendations that the Government are considering making to local authorities is that the responsibility for dealing with the homeless should be with the housing departments, which dispose of considerable re-lets and housing stock. But it is a very complex and difficult question. I should not presume to make any statements about panaceas, because there is none in this area. We shall be ready to meet the authorities as soon as they are ready.

Mr. Stallard: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what recent representation has been made to him by Inner London borough councils on the increase of homelessness in their boroughs.

Sir K. Joseph: I am well aware of the pressure of homelessness in the Inner London boroughs. My hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction and I met representatives of the Greater London Council and the London Boroughs Association earlier this year and discussed the problem of homeless families in detail. Several Inner London boroughs have shown concern about particular problems of family or individual homelessness.

Mr. Stallard: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that one of the major causes of the increase in homelessness,


certainly in the part of Inner London that I know best, is the activities of winklers and speculators, who are rapidly eroding the supply of rented and furnished accommodation, which is needed so much for people in dire need? Is he aware of the increase of the squatting problem in many of our Inner London boroughs? When he next meets his right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, will he try to shake him out of his smug, complacent approach to the whole problem, and try to find urgent solutions?

Sir K. Joseph: I do not think that any of my colleagues or I need shaking out of complacency. I was interested that the hon. Gentleman, with all his undoubtedly sincere interest and good will, does not have any panaceas to suggest, because there is none. We are in discussion with the local authorities to use every practical means to improve the position.

Mr. Robert Cooke: Will my right hon. Friend consult my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment about the under-occupation of many of the larger accommodation units in our big cities? People are afraid to let part of their houses because of the difficulty of rent control and that kind of thing, and the existing stock of accommodation units is largely underused in many places.

Sir K. Joseph: My hon. Friend tempts me out of my present responsibilities. When I was Minister of Housing, under-occupation was one of the great factors in the housing position.

Mr. Freeson: Within his own jurisdiction, will the right hon. Gentleman investigate with the regional hospital boards of our big cities the acreage of land that is redundant and being held against the possibility of development in the years to come, land that could very urgently be made available for housing, and particularly the possibility of housing for the chronically sick and disabled, who require frequent and regular weekly hospital servicing?

Sir K. Joseph: I very much agree with the hon. Gentleman that that should be a source of land in some cases. If the hon. Gentleman has a particular hospital in

mind, perhaps he will write to me. Since the Government came into office we have done a systematic survey of suitable land, and release is increasing in pace.

Mr. Winterton: Is my right hon. Friend prepared to comment on the part that the shortage of single-person accommodation plays in the overall problem of homelessness, not only in Inner London but elsewhere? Surely, if he urged local authorities to provide much more single-person accommodation and much more special accommodation for old people, that would to some degree resolve much of the homelessness that persists today.

Sir K. Joseph: Yes, Sir. I very much agree that, in the common interest I share in housing, more sheltered housing for the elderly would be a great blessing. Homelessness for the single is a problem in its own right, and has largely been exacerbated by the falling number of lodgings. The Government are taking steps to encourage both local authorities and voluntary bodies to provide more accommodation for the single homeless.

Mental Health Education

Mr. Mayhew: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what proportions of the Health Education Council's expenditure in 1971 and 1972 were attributable to mental health education.

Sir K. Joseph: In each of the financial years 1971–72 and 1972–73, less than 01 per cent. of the council's total expenditure was specifically on mental health education.

Mr. Mayhew: I accept that the council is doing admirable work in physical health education, but are not the proportions astonishing? Will the Minister make it clear that the council's responsibilities include mental health education? Is there not a great need for more awareness of the need for mental health education not only in general subjects, such as the need of small children for emotional security, but in specific subjects—for instance, the possibility of reducing the number of mongol children born to mothers beyond normal child-bearing age? Will the Minister look into this matter?

Sir K. Joseph: I agree that the proportion is astonishing. I am encouraged to think that the present discussions between


the NAMH and the Health Education Council will lead to a greater concentration of mental health education in future.

Private Occupation,al Pension Schemes

Mr. George Cunningham: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what proportion of total contributions to contributory private occupational pension schemes employees contribute, according to the latest figures available to the Government Actuary.

Mr. Dean: About one-third. Of a total of £860 million, £290 million was contributed by employees. The balance contributed by employers includes special payments, for example to finance benefits for back service, to augment benefits or to make good actuarial deficiencies.

Mr. Cunningham: Will the Secretary of State, and not the Under-Secretary, be prepared to admit that the facts which have just been given are in direct conflict with what he said on Second Reading of the Social Security Bill last November? Will the Secretary of State take this opportunity to apologise for misleading the House on that occasion?

Mr. Dean: It is the hon. Gentleman who is trying to mislead the House. He should know enough about these matters to realise that there is a fundamental difference between an occupational pension scheme, which is part of the remunerative package over which the employer has control, and the arrangements which we are proposing for the State reserve scheme, which pays special attention to the needs of the lower paid who, amongst other things, cannot benefit from tax relief.

Mr. Cunningham: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of that reply, which was designed to camouflage the facts—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member must make his submission in the proper form.

Abortion Survivors

Mr. Biggs-Davison: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will make a statement about the conditions under which medical experiments

may be performed on children surviving from an abortion.

Sir K. Joseph: Where a child survives an abortion the overriding responsibility of the medical staff is to promote and preserve its life. What steps are taken to this end is a matter for the clinical discretion of the doctor concerned.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Can my right hon. Friend tell me whether the mother's consent is sought before experimentation on live foetuses? Secondly, before the Government and Parliament come to any firm view on these matters, should there not be an opportunity of discussing Sir John Peel's report?

Sir K. Joseph: I am not aware of any experiments. If my hon. Friend cares to speak to me or let me know what he has in mind, I shall write to him or submit myself to further questioning.

Census Returns (Information)

Mr. Sydney Chapman: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what categories of information are to be published for the areas covered by the new parliamentary constituencies, and when, based upon the 1971 census returns.

Mr. Alison: It is intended to publish the results of the 1971 census analysed by both the existing and the new parliamentary constituencies in two stages: first, the information on population and housing early in the autumn; and second, the economic information including that on employment by industry and occupation group towards the end of the year.

Mr. Chapman: As at least 30 months will elapse between the census and the publication of the results based upon the new parliamentary constituencies, will my hon. Friend consider making available more quickly the information stemming from future census returns? I ask him to do so not only because the information is of vital importance to hon. Members but because of the increased mobility of the population, which makes the figures less relevant more quickly.

Mr. Alison: I take note of my hon. Friend's point.

National Health Service Drugs

Mr. Stonehouse: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what further


economies he intends to make in the provision of drugs for the National Health Service.

Sir K. Joseph: I am satisfied that the Voluntary Price Regulation Scheme provides a proper means of settling the prices of medicines in this country in a manner fair both to the National Health Service and to the manufacturers.

Mr. Stonehouse: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the Monopolies Commission's report on the Roche Group's products reveals merely the tip of the iceberg? Is there not ramp in most of the drugs which are being supplied to the National Health Service which deserves the immediate attention of the Secretary of State? Another reference to the Monopolies Commission would mean another 18 months at least before the commission could report. Does not the pointed reference in paragraph 201 of the Monopolies Commission's report about the lack of competition in non-reference drugs call attention to the immediacy of the problem?

Sir K. Joseph: No. I entirely disagree with the right hon. Gentleman's assertion. It is very wrong of him to make such a general denunciation without, so far as I know, a spark of evidence. I disagree with him entirely.

AID TO INDUSTRY (EEC POLICY)

Ql. Mr. Ridley: asked the Prime Minister if he will propose to the Heads of the Governments of the European Economic Community that all State aids to industry should be replaced by funds from the Community, allocated on the basis of a Community policy designed to put subvention to companies, industries and regions on a European basis.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Edward Heath): The Community's policy on State aids for the regions will be determined this year in the course of implementing the regional policy objectives agreed at the summit meeting last October. The remainder of the area covered by my hon. Friend's Question is governed by the competition provisions of the Treaty of Rome.

Mr. Ridley: Would that be a worthwhile European initiative which the

British Government could take which would lead to much fairer industrial competition throughout the whole of the Common Market and which would perhaps go some way to correct the impression which is gaining strength on the Continent that?nous ne sommes ici que pour la bière?

The Prime Minister: We took the initiative at the summit as far as regional policy was concerned. I think that the other Heads of Government would agree that it was because of the action which we took in preparation for the summit that the objective was included in the communique. The Commission has now been working on this matter. The Commissioner responsible, a former Member of this House, has produced the initial proposals. These are now being examined by the other Governments. This is the initiative which my hon. Friend wanted.

Mr. Benn: Will the Prime Minister assure the House that there is no link between regional support, and the proposals brought forward by Mr. Thomson, and British membership of the economic and monetary union that might prevent the British float from continuing, thus endangering the growth of the economy?

The Prime Minister: I have always emphasised, and I did so at the summit, that there is a direct link. However, I think that it is the reverse of what the right hon. Gentleman has in mind. The direct link is that it is not possible to move to a satisfactory position vis-à-vis economic and monetary union unless one has a satisfactory regional policy which will allow a proper balance to be created throughout the whole of the Community on the basis of which economic and monetary union could work.

Mr. Rost: If the Labour Party is interested in more regional aid through Europe, why is it that only the hon. and learned Member for Lincoln (Mr. Taverne) represents that party? Even the hon. and learned Member for Lincoln has had his path blocked in an underhand way by the Leader of the Opposition.

The Prime Minister: I am not sure that the Leader of the Opposition would entirely agree with my hon. Friend's premise.

Mr. Fernyhough: Can the Prime Minister assure us that, whatever conclusions the Commission may arrive at, the needs of the development areas will continue to be met by the Government until unemployment in those areas is substantially brought down?

The Prime Minister: It is in the interests of these areas that we should have a Community policy which meets their needs. That will be the objective of Her Majesty's Government in working out a policy for the Community as a whole with the Commissioner responsible and in the Council of Ministers.

OIL REFINERIES

Mr. Douglas: asked the Prime Minister if he is satisfied with the degree of co-ordination between the Department of Trade and Industry, the Department of the Environment and the Scottish Office with regard to the planning for expansion of oil refineries in the United Kingdom.

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. The three Departments maintain very close contact.

Mr. Douglas: Does the Prime Minister consider it satisfactory that of all the refineries in the United Kingdom only one major refinery is located in Scotland? Will he try to push the Departments out of their absurd complacency in this regard? They seem to think that North Sea oil will only come ashore in late 1974 or early 1975. The time to be planning expansion is now. We must not wait for North Sea oil to come ashore.

The Prime Minister: I fully agree with the hon. Gentleman about the need to plan fully in advance for the time when the oil comes ashore. That applies to refinery capacity as well. An interdepartmental working party has produced a note on the selection of sites for oil refineries. That has been sent out to all local authorities as guidance in dealing with specific applications and giving advice on potential sites in their areas where refineries could be to national and local advantage. All the information has been given to those who are concerned with the matter. Much depends on the individual companies making application either for new refinery capa-

city or for the extension of their existing capacity.

Mr. Edward Taylor: May I ask my right hon. Friend to tell us the extent to which the Government's endeavours to maximise the return in jobs and in cash for the nation from North Sea oil have been frustrated by the apparent threats by the Opposition to nationalise North Sea oil, either with or without compensation, in the event of their return to power?

The Prime Minister: It is difficult to give any figures. My judgment is that they have not frustrated the development of North Sea oil and the industries associated with it which have been going ahead very fast indeed, for the simple reason that people have taken no notice of what the Opposition have said. Nor do they expect them to become the Government.

GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (SECURITY)

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a further statement on progress made in the improvement of security within Government Departments.

The Prime Minister: As I have told the House, security arrangements in all Government Departments are kept under constant review.

Mr. Hamilton: When does the Prime Minister or the Government intend to make a statement to the House about the investigations which have been under way for a considerable time and are currently under way by Scotland Yard into the inquiries instigated by the revelations in The Guardian some time ago? When will the House have an opportunity of debating the Franks Report, which is a linked problem? It is becoming in the nature of a major scandal that the House cannot express its views on an extremely important matter.

The Prime Minister: On the particular matters to which the hon. Gentleman referred, of course there has been action following the police inquiries in the courts and sentences were passed on four people concerned, but all have given notice of appeal. The hon. Gentleman will therefore recognise that I must await


the outcome of those appeals before making any further statement to the House about the matter.
On the other matter concerning V and G, on which there was a leakage, I immediately instituted a tribunal of inquiry and the results are now well known to the House.

Mr. Hamilton: What about the Franks Report?

The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is well aware of the position about the Franks Report and hopes to arrange for a debate in the next few weeks.

Mr. Fowler: Going a little further on that point, may I ask whether my right hon. Friend agrees that not all Government information requires the protection of the Official Secrets Act and that it is a matter of some urgency that we should come to a decision on the proposals in the Franks Report?

The Prime Minister: Yes. We said that there would be a debate in the House before the Government announced any conclusions about it. I think that this is right.

Mr. Harold Wilson: The right hon. Gentleman referred to the Leader of the House concerning this matter. Does he recall that I raised this matter with his right hon. Friend last week and also asked when we might expect a statement on the report by the Computer Society and the Royal Statistical Society on the question of security under the census? Since that report has been with the Government for many months, may I ask when we can expect a statement?

The Prime Minister: I cannot give a precise date. I hope that it will be in the near future. We have been having discussions with the two societies concerned about the extent of publication of their reports, because they were responsible for them, and they gave various undertakings about the confidential nature of much of the material in them. Therefore, I think we are in their hands regarding publication of the documents.

PIPELINES (CONTROL)

Mr. Grimond: asked the Prime Minister if he is satisfied with the co-

ordination between the Department of the Environment and the Department of Trade and Industry over the control of pipelines in connection with oil and shipping installations.

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Grimond: If the Prime Minister is satisfied, may I ask who is responsible for planning below high water mark and whether mooring buoys, for instance, come under the Department of the Environment, as they are on or near the surface of the sea, whereas pipelines appear to be a matter for the Department of Trade and Industry?

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct in what he says about the different responsibilities for these matters. We must deal with them either by saying that only one Department will be responsible for the whole of these matters—this applies not only to Zetland but to the whole of the United Kingdom—or by having a system of co-ordination between the authorities involved in the different aspects of planning. Co-ordination is carried out by the Departments, but for Scotland it has been agreed that it should be carried out direct at regional level. I hope that will assist the right hon. Gentleman in the interests that he has at heart in producing a more speedy conclusion.

Mr. Sydney Chapman: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the question raised by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) is a classic example of taking the delicate balance between the environment, on the one hand, and the economy, on the other hand, and that the real solution to the problem is to ensure that the local planning authorities have properly qualified environmental advisers who can look at the whole matter instead of simply appearing to see that on one occasion commercialism conquers conservation or vice versa on another occasion?

The Prime Minister: I agree with my hon. Friend. I think that the reform of local government in Scotland, because of the change in the size of the units involved which that brings about, will enable greater resources to be made available to local authorities so that they have better advice in keeping this


balance. But under our system, which is accepted over the whole country, it is a matter for elected local authorities to take the decisions.

Mr. Grimond: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman—[Interruption.]—to clarify one point? Is he saying that under the new Act the regional authorities in Scotland will be empowered to plan below high water mark?

Mr. McNamara: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps I may raise this matter at the end of Question Time.

The Prime Minister: I think that the right hon. Gentleman has misunderstood what I said. Whereas there are Departments which are responsible for these matters, in particular the DTI, the DOE and the Scottish Office itself, instead of co-ordination taking place at headquarters departmental level it will now take place at the regional level of the Department concerned.

RHODESIA

Sir G. Nabarro: asked the Prime Minister whether he will now seek to meet Mr. Ian Smith to resume discussions on all outstanding difficulties, including the United Nations sanctions.

The Prime Minister: We have made it clear to Mr. Smith that what is now required is agreement between the races in Rhodesia on the basis for a settlement. We are ready at any time to respond to such an agreement.

Sir G. Nabarro: Is not the most serious aspect of these matters the fact that the whole of the United Kingdom's trade with Rhodesia has now been virtually sabotaged and taken by the Americans, the Japanese, the West Germans and others— in other words, our most powerful trade competitors all over the world? Are we to sit on the sidelines indefinitely and allow these people to sequestrate our overseas trade?

The Prime Minister: The loss of trade to the United Kingdom is and has been one aspect since the Rhodesian problem began, but it is only one aspect. The other aspect was that the settlement which we worked out was shown by the Pearce Commission not to be acceptable to the

great majority of the African population. If my hon. Friend is referring solely to economic matters, I should point out that the impact on British trade in the rest of the African continent has to be considered as well.

Mr. Callaghan: Is the Prime Minister aware that, in the view of a growing number of people, it is time that we brought to an end this period of waiting for Mr. Smith to produce an agreement? Is he aware that the security situation in Rhodesia is deteriorating very fast, that there is a growing danger of bloodshed there and that the time has now come for the British Government to call together for fresh discussions not only Mr. Smith but the Africans, who must be involved in any settlement, otherwise in default of this the situation will continue to deteriorate, there will be bloodshed and the African leadership will pass into more extreme hands?

The Prime Minister: I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. There has always been a danger of internal violence in Rhodesia, particularly perhaps from those who come into Rhodesia from outside.
As to the British Government bringing together Mr. Smith and the Africans, that depends on the two parties being prepared to talk together under British Government auspices.

Sir J. Langford-Holt: May I ask my right hon. Friend to tell us whether, in the Government's view, sanctions will become effective in weeks rather than months? Alternatively, does he agree that there may be an argument for and against sanctions but that there is no argument for sanctions which do not work?

The Prime Minister: There is absolutely no doubt that one reason why Mr. Smith was prepared to negotiate with the Foreign Secretary and to work out an agreement which it was hoped would be acceptable to the Africans was that sanctions were continuing.

Mr. Rose: Is the Prime Minister aware that there is only one outstanding difficulty—the continuing state of treason and rebellion by Mr. Smith and his friends in Rhodesia? Will he therefore take fresh initiatives to ensure that sanctions are rigorously applied and extended by all


United Nations members? Is he aware that the problem arises because of a cynical dual standard there and by the lack of determination, for which we all share in the blame, to bring to heel a group of men who have shown their willingness to imprison, to detain and to execute people who are under the protection of this Parliament?

The Prime Minister: The Government ensure that their obligations to the United Nations on sanctions are carried out. I differ from the hon. Gentleman in that I think that the only way of dealing with the problem is to produce a settlement acceptable to all races in Rhodesia.

Mr. Awdry: Whatever we may think of the Smith régime, do not recent events indicate that there is in Southern Rhodesia a system of appeal which is a proper system of appeal that is totally absent in other African States which continually criticise the Smith régime?

The Prime Minister: I do not see why this should be a matter for dispute. One can dispute about the terms on which Mr. Niesewand was allowed to leave Rhodesia. One cannot dispute the fact that after a court decision there was a means of appeal and the higher court came to a different conclusion.

Mr. Harold Wilson: On the point made by the hon. Member for Chippenham (Mr. Awdry), is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is no system of appeal whatsoever for a very large number of Africans who have been in detention for a very long period and that, indeed, in the Matamabuto case there has been a decision by the Privy Council in this matter?
Is the right hon. Gentleman further aware that we should all like to congratulate him on the answers he has given this afternoon, particularly his repeated answers on sanctions, remembering the line which he himself took when the sanctions were imposed? Will he now answer the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) when he put his question? Is it still the fact, as the Foreign Secretary told us earlier in the year, that the draft agreement of last year, which was turned down by the Africans and the Pearce Commission, still

lies on the table? Should it not now be made clear that it does not lie on the table but will require substantial amendment as well as African approval?

The Prime Minister: I am well aware of the first point made by the right hon. Gentleman. Of course, he will recall that in the settlement negotiated by my right hon. Friend provision was made for the commission to deal with detainees.
On the last part of the right hon. Gentleman's question, I do not think one needs to split hairs about this, but surely the position is that one wants Mr. Smith and the Africans to discuss together a settlement, and the basis of this can be the agreement which was worked out with amendments made by either side in the discussions they may undertake. I see no point in removing this entirely from the table and then saying that they have to start all over again, either on the last Rhodesian constitution or on the 1961 constitution.

MAPLIN (CIVIL AVIATION AUTHORITY'S REPORT)

The following Written Question stood upon the Order Paper:

Mr. JESSEL: TO ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether he has received a report from the Civil Aviation Authority on its recent study of air traffic forecasts and airport capacity in the London area and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Heseltine—to answer Written Question No. 40.

The Minister for Aerospace and Shipping (Mr. Michael Heseltine): I have received a copy of a report by the Civil Aviation Authority "Forecast of Air Traffic and Capacity of Airports in the London Area" which was published this morning.
The report, which is based on the latest estimates by the British Airports Authority and others of passenger and aircraft movements in 1980 and 1985, gives the Civil Aviation Authority's view on these figures and examines the ability of London's airports to meet the demand projected up to 1985 both for runway capacity and for ground handling


capacity. It makes no attempt to evaluate the environmental consequences of the levels of traffic predicted. It emphasises the uncertainties and margins of error in the forecasts.
The report does not conflict with the judgment of the Roskill Commission that new airport capacity will be required in the early 1980s in South-East England. Although the Civil Aviation Authority Study reaches the conclusion that the pressure on runway capacity will be less severe in the early in 1980s than had been forecast earlier, it concludes that even with one runway at Maplin in operation there would be a shortage of available ground handling capacity at Heathrow, Gatwick and Maplin together in 1985. The main differences between the Roskill Commission's estimates and those in the present report are that it would be possible to increase the number of aircraft movements at Gatwick by 50 per cent. above the level assumed by the Roskill Commission, and there will be a little more use of wide-bodied aircraft by 1985 than the commission assumed.
Nothing in this report gives grounds for the Government to reconsider its decision, taken in the light of the Roskill Commission's Report, that a third London Airport is required by the earliest practical date and that the best site for this expansion is Maplin. It offers a unique opportunity of providing for the necessary expansion of air transport for as far ahead as anyone can foresee, combined with a seaport and for sensible economic development in Essex. At the same time it offers the only civilised solution to the problem of bringing relief to many hundreds of thousands living in densely populated areas and increasingly disturbed by aircraft noise and congestion.
In anticipation of the opening of Maplin, the Government have already announced that Luton, Stanstead and Southend Airports will be either closed or severely limited in use in due course and that there will be no second runway at Gatwick. The Government are determined to press on with the construction of Maplin so that the first runway is in operation as early as possible.

Mr. Jessel: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is time to stop cramming more and more aircraft over the hundreds of

thousands of people living around Heathrow and the other airports to whom he referred? Will he please continue to attach due weight to the need for peace, quiet, and the health and safety of those people? Will he please continue to go full steam ahead with the construction of Maplin?

Mr. Heseltine: I can give my hon. Friend the assurance that that is our intention. If we were to cram aircraft into Gatwick and Heathrow, as my hon. Friend suggests, by 1985 we should have to have some 30 per cent. more operations moving in and out of Heathrow and some 130 per cent. more moving in and out of Gatwick.

Mr. Crosland: The Minister and I have obviously been reading entirely different reports. Is the Minister aware that to any objective reader this excellent report drives yet another nail into the enormous coffin of this absurd white elephant of Maplin, and illustrates beyond any doubt that no additional airport capacity in the South-East is needed before 1985. There are three remaining nails still to be driven in. Perhaps I may put these to the Minister. First, on ground handling capacity, which the Minister mentioned, is he not aware that it is perfectly within the jurisdiction of the Government and the British Airports Authority to extend ground handling capacity in the space which already exists at the existing airports?
Second, is the Minister aware—he should make it clear to the House—that the report's estimate of surplus runway capacity in 1985 in the South-East area is made without taking any account of the possibility of a deliberate policy of diversion of air traffic movements from the London area to regional airports? Will he ask the Civil Aviation Authority to bear this in mind in its important regional study, for which it has just given a contract?
Third, on the critical problem of noise around existing airports—here I agree with the Minister—will the Minister now invite the CAA to do a noise study and work out—it is perfectly possible; the techniques are well known to the Government—the noise consequences of its central traffic forecast for 1985?
If the CAA does that, I can promise the Minister that with the quieter engines


now coming so rapidly into service we shall find that the extra traffic can be accommodated with an impressive reduction in the present level of noise.

Mr. Heseltine: I think that I can take it that the right hon. Gentleman is now in favour of abandoning Maplin and using Gatwick, Heathrow, Luton, Stanstead and Southend as London airports, with no further airport at all. If that is what the right hon. Gentleman is suggesting, he should tell the House plainly, so that we may make a clear judgment on the alternative policies.
Referring to the right hon. Gentleman's three particular points. I deal first with the point that the handling capacity on the ground can be made available in the space which exists. I made that point very clearly on Second Reading of the Maplin Development Bill. I said that on aviation grounds the space could be found around existing airports. The question that the House will have to consider is whether environmentally we are prepared to see the number of movements increased by 130 per cent. at Gatwick and by 30 per cent. at Heathrow between now and 1985. That is one of the principal decisions which guided the Government towards the Maplin decision in the first place.
As to the question whether we should divert more aircraft movements towards the provinces, I see no ground for believing that the pattern of aircraft movements which has grown up so far would not be substantially repeated, as the growth in the whole volume of the market increases. In these circumstances there is no reason to suppose that regional airports would syphon off more than has already been taken into account in the figures before us, which the report considers. In addition, the report assumes that 23,000 movements will be lost to the South-East as a result of the decision to go to Maplin.
As for the question of a noise study, it is perfectly possible to carry these matters onwards and onwards for ever, but anybody living anywhere near airports, even with the quieter aircraft coming in, knows of the great environmental harm that the intrusion of aircraft noise does. As quieter aircraft come in, so the expectancy of the public will rise, and I do not believe that it would be tolerable, having made the commitments we have

made in respect of Luton, Stansted and Southend, and having made it clear that we do not see more than limited development of Gatwick, to reverse those proposals, as the right hon. Gentleman seems to intend.

Sir J. Rodgers: Can the Minister give an assurance that there will be no increase in commercial aircraft movements at West Mailing either before or after Maplin comes into operation?

Mr. Heseltine: In the welter of studies for this document, West Mailing has escaped my attention, but I will certainly look at that point.

Mr. Hugh Jenkins: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that anyone with constituency responsibilities in the South-East must be conscious of the absolute need to lift some of the noise burden from these constituencies? Therefore it would be quite wrong, in order to maintain solidarity with my right hon. Friend the Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland)— much as I should like to do so—if I were to conceal from the House that I differ strongly from him in this connection. It seems to me that any objective determination on this report must lead to the conclusion that, in spite of the qualifications it makes, it generally follows the line that there must be relief from the burden of aircraft noise and that the only way to achieve this is by reaching the sort of decision which has been reached about Maplin.
Is the Minister aware that he will not be entirely without support on this side of the House if he decides to proceed with his programme and policy for the third London Airport at Maplin?

Mr. Heseltine: It seems to me that it would embarrass the hon. Member if I were to show too much support for him. His question seems designed more for his own Front Bench than for me.

Sir S. McAdden: While not sharing the joy of other hon. Members at the transfer of their nuisances to my own area, may I draw attention to newspaper reports which have been widespread with regard to this report before its publication? If we are to have leaks of this nature, can they in future be accurate leaks?

Mr. Heseltine: We would rather have no leaks at all. I greatly deplore that there should have been leaks with regard to one of the working documents on this report.
A considerable part of the noise which will come into the area to which my hon. Friend refers will be over the sea. That is one of the great advantages of the Maplin site.

Mr. David Steel: Since this report is extremely important, will the hon. Gentleman ask his right hon. Friend the Leader of the House for an opportunity for the House to have a fresh look at the situation, bearing in mind the cost involved?

Mr. Heseltine: The House already has this opportunity through the Standing Committee which is sitting to deal with the Maplin Development Bill.

Mr. Deedes: In connection with this report, has the Minister made any assumption about the Channel Tunnel?

Mr. Heseltine: The Civil Aviation Authority assumed that there would be a Channel Tunnel by 1980 allowing a four-hour London-Paris journey. It is also its calculation that if that tunnel did not exist it would bring forward the dates in the report by some two years.

Mr. Robert C. Brown: Will the Minister accept that those of us with constituency responsibilities in the North-East and other development areas are very anxious about the decision on Maplin Sands and other decisions affecting the south-east of England? We are extremely concerned, in fact, that two or three decisions, such as Maplin Sands, commit us to so much public expenditure in the future that there will be nothing left to develop the regions. The Government ought to think again on this problem, armed with this report.

Mr. Heseltine: I am sure the hon. Member realises that we all share his concern about the regions. That is why it is one of the Government's policies to ensure that the regions get more help than ever before. He may also want to bear the wider national interest in mind. Sixteen per cent. of the country's trade goes by air, and by 1980 air cargo in the London area will treble. That is an

indication of the general importance of this industry, which is also a massive earner of foreign currency.

Sir Bernard Braine: It my hon. Friend aware that the report and the exchange this afternoon must inevitably add to the existing uncertainty in South-East Essex about the pressing need to provide new, adequate access roads not merely to the airport but to the proposed seaport? Does my hon. Friend agree that any delay in completing the airport must not be used as an excuse for delaying the provision of adequate access roads for the seaport?

Mr. Heseltine: I am sure my hon. Friend knows how much we agree with him about the general communications situation in South-East Essex and also recognises the Government's determination to announce the new communications network proposals in respect of the airport as soon as possible.

Mr. Jay: As the Minister used this report as one of his main arguments in the Second Reading debte, is it not clear that there is no justification for the £800 million outlay when we can get all the runway capacity we need for £8 million or £10 million elsewhere?

Mr. Heseltine: Those figures bear no examination whatsoever. It could certainly not be achieved at the cost the right hon. Gentleman suggests. In fact, massive investments would be required, and the chances are that in any case it would then be found necessary to build a third London Airport at a later date. Nor can we ignore the massive environmental improvement associated with this decision.

Mr. Allason: Can my right hon. Friend tell me whether this report adequately covers the situation at Luton, which is expanding at a greater rate than any other airport in this country? This is making life utterly intolerable for the residents of Hertfordshire, whereas the airport lies in Bedfordshire. There is expansion not only of freight but also of passenger traffic, very little of which comes from the locality but in fact from all over the country. Is he aware that we should be very much happier if they would go to the North-East and fly from there?

Mr. Heseltine: I can assure my hon. Friend that the report deals with the future of Luton. It makes two alternative assumptions. One is that traffic after 1980 will be virtually eliminated and the other is that it will be reduced to 20,000 movements a year. It is a matter for Government decision which policy is carried out, but it is our intention severely to restrict growth at Luton once Maplin comes into operation.

Mr. Dalyell: Can the Minister tell the House what cost has been attached to a second runway at Gatwick?

Mr. Heseltine: That is not a relevant question for the Government because we do not believe that it would be practicable in all the circumstances to develop a second runway at Gatwick. I am sure the hon. Member remembers that the reason is that to do so would be to imply a policy of basing the growth of London Airport traffic on existing airports. It is because we have set our face against that policy that we are committed to what is environmentally a vastly more attractive scheme—Maplin.
There is one other fact which I think the House will want to take into account. For the first time we have an opportunity at Maplin to plan an airport which is designed for the scale of operations which are presaged for the future. The other airports have grown up piecemeal. They were never expected to have to carry the present traffic. Although this is obviously an area where one can argue about whether it will be 1981, 1982, 1983 or 1984 when demand reaches saturation, no one can deny that in this century the massive growth of this industry will force us into the provision of very expensive and extensive facilities.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS

Mr. McNamara: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. When you called Question No. Q4 in the name of the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) you allowed him a second supplementary question. As I understand the situation, the decision is for you whether to allow a second supplementary question, based on the report of the Procedure Committee. However, in. view of the fact that many hon. Members were

seeking to put supplementary questions to the Prime Minister and that we are now limited to one question only, would you give some guidance to the House on how you will be operating your discretion?

Mr. Speaker: I think it is something which should be done very occasionally at the discretion of the Chair in order that an hon. or right hon. Member who asks a question may endeavour to get a more satisfactory answer. That was the spirit of the report of the Select Committee, and I try to be guided by it.

Mr. Dalyell: On a point of order. Is it in order for a Minister to dismiss a direct question with the assertion that it is irrelevant—as did the Minister for Aerospace and Shipping—and then to give a long answer proving that it is exceedingly relevant?

Mr. Speaker: As the hon. Gentleman knows very well, that is not a matter for the Chair.

Mr. David Steel: On a point of order. The Minister for Aerospace answered Written Question No. 40. It is clear from the mark in the margin of the Order Paper that this question was tabled yesterday after a reply to myself and another hon. Member on the same subject. Had the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Jessel) sought to ask a Private Notice Question or had the Minister sought to make a statement, the House would have had notice through the usual channels and by means of the television annunciators. Would you consider this point, Mr. Speaker—that, when a Minister seeks to answer a Written Question in that way on an important matter, we should likewise have notice?

Mr. Speaker: I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for having raised that point. I will consider it.

BILL PRESENTED

PROTECTION OF LICENSED TENANTS

Mr. A. W. Stallard, supported by Mr. Thomas Cox, Mr. John Fraser, Mr. Reginald Freeson, Mr. Ernest Perry, Mr. Ray Mawby, Mr. Lamborn and Mr. William Price presented a Bill to amend the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 to give security of tenure to tenants of licensed


premises: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday next and to be printed. [Bill 126.]

WELSH AFFAIRS

Ordered,
That the matter of the handicapped in Wales, being a matter relating exclusively to Wales and Monmouthshire, be referred to the Welsh Grand Committee for their consideration.—[Mr. Prior.]

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS

Motion made and Question put forthwith pursuant to order [22nd March],
That the Draft Double Taxation Relief flaxes on Incomes) (Denmark) Order 1973 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments.—[Mr. Prior.]

Question agreed to.

PENSIONS OF MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT (SURCHARGE) BILL

3.52 p.m.

Mr. George Cunningham: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide that, for as long as contributions to any reserve pension scheme established by legislation of this Session do not attract tax relief in the same way as contributions to occupational pension schemes, a surcharge of 50 per cent. (£112·50 per annum) shall be payable by Members of Parliament on their contributions to the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund to offset the tax relief which they receive.
What I am seeking to do is take away from Members of Parliament the tax relief that we now enjoy on the contributions we make to our own Pension Fund. I am not allowed to do that directly by a Ten-Minute Bill, so I am obliged to provide that we should suffer a surcharge of the amount stated on the contributions we pay without getting any additional advantage in return. This may seem, on the surface, a domestic House of Commons matter, but I assure those hon. Members who have not come across the point before that this is definitely not so.
In each constituency there are approximately 10,000 people who, if a vote on the Social Security Bill goes a certain way, will be denied a tax relief, which we Members of Parliament give ourselves and will continue to give ourselves, if the Government get their way. I suggest that that is a situation of serious moral consideration and political content which no hon. Member can afford to ignore unless he has a majority of 25,000-plus.
This is not a party matter. It is a question of fair dealing and of honour. Some Conservatives—I am thinking of the hon. Members for Kensington, South (Sir B. Rhys Williams) and Belper (Mr. Stewart-Smith), who are in the Chamber, and of their hon. Friends the Members for Wells (Mr. Boscawen), Billericay (Mr. McCrindle), and Chorley (Mrs. Monks)— showed that they attached greater importance to fairness and honour in this matter than to obeying their party Whip when in Standing Committee they voted for or abstained on an amendment of mine which the Government will tomorrow try to kill.
The background should be known to all hon. Members, especially after the


excellent editorial in The Times yesterday. In brief, the Social Security Bill creates a new reserve pension scheme. All employees who are not in an occupational scheme will now have to contribute to the new scheme. It has been an established principle in this country for a long time, much stressed by the Conservative Party in opposition that contributions to pension schemes should attract tax relief.
There are 11 million people at the moment contributing to occupational schemes who get that tax relief, which is worth about £150 million a year to them. But the Government are saying that the approximately 7 million people who will contribute to the new reserve scheme should not get the tax relief. 1 hat would amount, under the amendment which has been made to the Bill, to approximately £25 million.
This tax relief is not unimportant to those people. It is the Government's own estimate that, of the 7 million contributors to the reserve scheme, between 5 million and 6 million will be taxpayers, so they will be abe to benefit from tax relief. To any taxpayer, the relief is worth 30 per cent. of the nominal cost of his contributions.
We all understand why the Government want to saddle the reserve scheme with this tax disadvantage. It is because they want as few people as possible to remain in the reserve scheme. There may be hon. Members who disagree with that point of view, but it is a legitimate and respectable point of view for Conservatives to held.
But what I suggest seriously to Conservative Members is that the device proposed to give to these contributions for pension purposes a tax disadvantage in essentially similar conditions to those applying to all other pension schemes is not a legitimate, permissible, or acceptable means of achieving that objective. The Government have made great play with the fact—it is their only argument —that they are arranging for the employer to pay more than the employee to the reserve scheme and that therefore that is as good as tax relief.
The point that hon. Members must take personally as well as seriously is this: in 1971, we gave ourselves a new

pension scheme. Until then, contributions for our pension were paid on a 50 50 basis by the Member and the Exchequer. Since 1971, we have paid three-eighths of the total contribution and the Exchequer has paid the remainder, five-eighths.
This change was made on the recommendation of Lord Boyle, in his report. In paragraph 71 of that report, Lord Boyle addressed himself specifically to this point. He said that he was recommending that that ratio be adopted because that was normal in the private pension field. The facts show that he was right. He said that he was also recommending it because that was the ratio that the Government were proposing for the State reserve scheme.
But Lord Boyle did not recommend that we should not get tax relief on our contributions and we have made no arrangement not to get tax relief. Consequently, we are enjoying tax relief on our contributions when the ratio of contribution is exactly the same as is proposed for the State reserve scheme. I suggest that, in those circumstances, for hon. Members to allow the Government tomorrow to whip them into the Lobby to kill the amendment which was made in Committee with the assistance of five Conservative Members would be more than unfair; it would be dishonourable.
If hon. Members are inclined to do so and to overlook the moral considerations, I would ask them to remember that between 5 million and 6 million people being gratuitously given this grievance will mean about 9,000 constituents in every constituency in the country, their wives, their husbands, and their grown-up and voting sons and daughters. That will probably mean about 15,000 voters in every constituency in the country. Let no hon. Member think that they will not know about it. We shall take care that they know all about it. As I have said, few hon. Members can afford a manifest grievance of that kind to be felt by such a large number of their constituents.
If hon. Members are not prepared to stop the Government tomorrow, the Bill at least allows them to be consistent and fair, and to take away from themselves the tax relief which they now enjoy.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. George Cunningham, Mr. Edmund Dell, Mr. Alexander W. Lyon, and Mr. Michael Meacher.

PENSIONS OF MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT (SURCHARGE)

Bill to provide that, for as long as contributions to any reserve pension scheme established by legislation of this Session do not attract tax relief in the same way as contributions to occupational pension schemes, a surcharge of 50 per cent. (£112·50 per annum) shall be payable by Members of Parliament on their contributions to the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund to offset the tax relief which they receive, presented accordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday next and to be printed. [Bill 127.]

Orders of the Day — SOCIAL SECURITY BILL

As amended (in Standing Committee), considered.

New Clause 1

POWER TO AMEND SCHEDULE 18 BY REGULATION

The Secretary of State shall have power by regulation to amend Schedule 18 to this Act to provide an equal weekly rate of pension irrespective of sex for every £1 of each year's reckonable contribution factor and for ages of retirement between 60 and 65 inclusive; but there shall be no power under this section compulsorily to raise the retirement age of women above 60.—[Mr. Dell.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

4.0 p.m.

Mr. Edmund Dell: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Mr. Speaker: I have selected new Clause 1 but I gather from the right hon. Member that it will be for the convenience of the House to consider with it the following amendments:
No. 53, in Clause 49, page 64, line 37, at end insert:
and
(f) it offers to women earners the same rights to membership as it offers to men'.
No. 172, in page 64, line 37, at end insert:
' (f) it offers to women earners the same rights as it offers to men'.
No. 173, in Clause 51, page 68, line 25, leave out subsection (9).
No. 174, in Clause 52, page 70, line 5, leave out from 'earner' to 'to' in line 6.
No. 152, in Clause 69, page 91, line 19, after 'State', insert:
'of which at least one-third shall be women'.
No. 131, in Schedule 18, page 179, line 41, leave out from beginning to the end of line 53 on page 180 and insert:
4.—(1) The Secretary of State shall make regulations specifying the weekly rate of pension (without bonuses) for every £1 of the earner's contribution factor.
(2) An earner's weekly rate of pension shall vary according to the age at which he earned his contribution factor (treating him for this


purpose as having been in any year, of the age which he had attained on the last day of that year).
(3) The regulations referred to in sub-paragraph 4(1) above shall specify separate rates of pension for pensionable ages of 60, 61, 62, 63, 64 and 65 '.
No. 155, in page 180, column 2, leave out line 5.
No. 156, in page 180, column 3, leave out lines 5 to 44.

Mr. Dell: I confess I am in some difficulty because I do not see any member of the Government responsible for this Bill in his place to listen to my persuasive arguments. However, as the Minister has now arrived, I shall be able to advance the arguments relevant to this new clause and Amendment No. 131, which is the other amendment grouped here for which I have primary responsibility. My name is added to other amendments but these are two which deal with the reserve pension scheme. The other amendments grouped here deal with occupational pension schemes.
To use the attractive language of an hon. Lady who has a letter in The Times this morning, 7 million people under the Social Security Bill will be "relegated"—I quote the hon. Lady—to the reserve pension scheme. This idea of relegation to that scheme is, of course, the baste Government concept about the scheme. It is that it is a fallback scheme and by its nature a very unattractive scheme. Indeed, one might say that never before in human history has a Government cried "stinking fish" so frequently and so enthusiastically about any product of its own conception as this Government have about the reserve pension scheme.
Nevertheless, the odd fact is that, bad as it is, for many people it will be better than the occupational scheme at minimum levels. There will, for example, be pressure from younger people to be in the reserve pension scheme, and one of the reasons why the Government oppose tax relief on contributions to the reserve pension scheme is that they believe their strategy to be in danger of a choice between the reserve pension scheme and an occupational scheme, which is already very finely balanced. They feel, therefore, that if a tax rebate is given, the balance will fall very much more strongly, for many people in favour of the reserve pension scheme. But in any case, whether or

not the figure of 7 million which the Government have estimated for the reserve pension scheme turns out to be the figure, or whether it is a larger figure, the Government tell us that these people are to be relegated to it.
The question is, and the question when the Committee was discussing Part III of the Bill was simply, is there any way in which the reserve pension scheme can be improved? We tried in Committee to improve the reserve pension scheme but the Government were very resistant to the idea of improving it. They said that it was a fallback and that, indeed almost as a matter of principle, it must not be improved. But occupational pension schemes, they said, might be improved. The pressure of members might lead to improvement of the occupational pension scheme but the Minister's view of the reserve pension scheme was that it must not be improved. We had only one success in trying to improve the reserve pension scheme. That was in response to an amendment I moved about enhancement if retirement is deferred.
Later I shall have something more to say about Government Amendment No. 91, which is relevant to the new clause and the amendment to which at present I am speaking. Amendment No. 91 makes this new clause or Amendment No. 131 more necessary than before if fairness is to be done.
But the Government so far have resisted all other pressures to improve the reserve pension scheme and I can tell them there will be pressure to do so from at least 7 million people. There will be pressure from Members of Parliament to improve it, again if for no other reason than that advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South-West (Mr. George Cunningham) in the speech that he made a few moments ago—that many constituents will be deeply aggrieved by the nature of the reserve pension scheme. Therefore the Government might as well listen now.
One of the facts about the reserve pension scheme is its discrimination against women. An important question in Committee was whether there was anything we could do which would, at small cost, go some way towards reducing the discrimination against women. I made a proposal in Committee that we should


eliminate the present tables in Schedule 18, on page 180 of the Bill, which are divided between men and women and different retirement ages of 65 and 60. I said that we should eliminate that method of showing age and reckonable contribution and that we should insert instead actuarially calculated tables depending simply on the age at which reckonable contributions are made, as they are in Schedule 18, but—and this is the difference—depending also on the age at which actual retirement takes place, those ages being between 60 and 65. Instead of the tables here, there would be not a table for men and a table for women but tables for each age of retirement—at 61, 62, 63, 64 or 65—with the earnings per reckonable contribution depending, as in Schedule 18, upon the age at which they were made. That would be the basis of the table in Schedule 18, and not sex discrimination.
The table would be based on the age of contribution and the age of retirement, not tables for men and women, depending on different ages of retirement. In other words, if one takes the position that would then arise, women could still retire at 60, as most women will want to do. I have written a provision into the new clause guaranteeing —though that is not a question here— that they can still retire at 60. On the other hand, they could work on voluntarily if they wished to do so and if they saw reason to do so. They would then benefit from it fully according to the contribution which they had made and the pension they had earned.
Here I make a preliminary remark about Amendment No. 91, to which no doubt we shall return. We shall return to it in the light of what the Government say about my new Clause 1 and Amendment No. 131, because if we accept Amendment No. 91 without some such system as is written into my new clause and my amendment and without, in other words, changing the table in Schedule 18—if Amendment No. 91 is based on the table in that schedule— then actuarially, which is what the Government are concerned with in their reserve pension scheme, women will be "diddled" by Amendment No. 91 instead of benefiting from it. They will get less for their contributions than men

would get in equivalent circumstances. The very fact that the Government have put down Amendment No. 91 in response to pleas made to them on all sides of the Committee reinforces the need for new Clause 1 and for Amendment No. 131.
There are many reasons why women might want to work on after the age of 60. They might want to earn a higher pension, which will be particularly important to single women, or they might want to retire at the same time as their husbands. These are the advantages that would accrue for women if the Government accept my arguments.
There are, then, the arguments for men, because I am not simply putting forward a case for women. Men will still be able to retire at 65 but if for a variety of reasons they retired early they would be able to get their reserve pension at the time they retired. Let us take a typical example which the Government foresee arising with the dual system of occupational and reserve pensions. The Government see many people who work for most of their lives under the occupational pension system spending part of their working lives paying for the reserve pension. In addition to their occupational entitlement they will have a reserve entitlement.
In many occupational pension schemes people are required to retire earlier than 65—at 62, 60 or even earlier than that. What will be the position of the man who retires before 65 and gets the benefit of his occupational pension when, as the Bill is now drawn, his reserve pension entitlement can be obtained only at the age of 65? It would be very much better for men to be able to claim their reserve entitlement before the age of 65 if it coincides with age of retirement under an occupational pension scheme. My proposal would meet the needs of men in that respect.
I do not see that the Government can conceivably object as a matter of principle to what I am proposing. It in no way conflicts with the money purchase basis of the reserve scheme. There are genuine reasons for having a flexible reirement age for men as well as women. For women it helps to overcome discrimination against them and it is the only way of dealing with the pension


problem created by different retirement ages. For men it enables questions of individual family and health circumstances to be considered. Because the Government cannot object to this in principle, therefore, I offer it to them again to see whether they have any better-informed comments to make on the idea than the Minister brought forward in Committee.
As usual, in order to encourage them a little in my direction I offer the Government a compromise. I always offer them a compromise and I always try to encourage them forward little by little to try to overcome their resistance to improving the reserve scheme. I offer them Amendment No. 131 or new Clause 1. The amendment provides that the change should be made now, written into the Bill now. The clause says that if the Government do not want to do it now, but if they want to wait a little and think about it, they should take the power to do it by regulation at such time as they think right. The clause gives the Government the power to introduce changes in Schedule 18 by regulation in accordance with the principles I am advancing.
There is only one possible objection to the proposal—cost, and, in particular, it is sometimes argued, the cost to men. The Under-Secretary in Committee in replying to a debate which I initiated in moving an amendment dedicated to the same purpose as the new clause and the amendment now before us, gave a cost which was totally irrelevant to the argument I was presenting. Indeed, he tried to attribute his answer to the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. O'Malley), but it was irrelevant to anything that my hon. Friend said. The Under-Secretary said that the cost would be increased by no less than half. He said—
despite their"—
that is women—
earlier retirement age"—
in other words he was referring to a situation in which women retired earlier—
… the cost of providing the benefit on women's contributions would be increased by no less than half."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee E, 5th April 1973; c. 1559.]

That is not what I was proposing and it is not what I am proposing now. There is no such cost. The figure which the Under-Secretary gave was irrelevant, and when I challenged him to give an accurate cost for my proposal he failed to do so.
4.15 p.m.
Under my proposal the pension depends on the contribution and age of retirement, irrespective of sex. The cost of my proposal is very small simply because the additional cost of women's pensions is affected far more by early retirement than it is by a longer life. Ninety per cent. of the difference is accounted for by earlier retirement. A 4 per cent. contribution buys only slightly more pension for a man, including his widow's pension, than it buys for a woman, provided the retirement age is the same.
In other words, the small amount of transfer that would take place between men and women would be no greater than the transfer which in any case takes place between manual workers and non-manual workers who have different lengths of life, or between people who live in Rochdale and people who live in Brighton who have different lengths of life. This is the measure of the sort of transfer that would take place between men and women if my proposal were adopted. Therefore it is possible for a small cost to make a major advance in overcoming the pension problem created by different retirement ages for men and women. I see no ground of principle and I hope that the Government will not say there is a ground of cost on which they can reject my proposals.

Mrs. Barbara Castle: First may I say how welcome it is to see the Secretary of State here on Report. We missed him sadly during the Committee proceedings during which we fought out long, far-reaching questions of principle affecting the whole foundation of his social security strategy. Nobly as the Under-Secretary has battled on in the right hon. Gentleman's absence, it would have been deplorable for the House to have gone ahead to finish the Bill without the Secretary of State having listened to and, I hope, personally answered a number of the detailed points


of principle which we thrashed out in Committee for so long.
I want to congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell) not only on the way in which he moved his new clause but on the ingenuity he displayed in approaching one of the central problems and deficiencies of the Bill, namely the problem faced by women under the Government's social security proposals. His proposal shows what can be done in overcoming administrative and actuarial difficulties in the way of complete equality if only one starts passionately motivated by the right principle.
The trouble is that the Government have approached the needs of women in exactly the opposite way and that is why the Bill as it stands and, if it passes the Report stage unamended, as it will stand is an insult and an injury to the women of this country—and insult and injury of which they are becoming increasingly and angrily aware. This large group of amendments continues the battle for equal pension rights for women which we conducted throughout the Committee. It deals with only a part of the battle because grouped here are amendments dealing with occupational pension schemes and with the State reserve scheme.
One of the difficulties that we have experienced in getting justice for women in this Bill is that the scheme is so complicated that they have no means of realising the injustice being perpetrated against them unless and until someone can explain the implications to them in very simple language. The whole purpose of these amendments, therefore, can be understood only against the background of the wider concept of women's rights at present embodied in the Bill.
Our battle for women is first, against the whole two-tier structure of pensions which the Government have introduced. The basic scheme which is to be applicable to everyone and financed by earnings-related contributions will produce only a totally inadequate flat-rate benefit. Even in its limited provisions, the scheme is deeply unequal to women anyway because it is imbued with the now out of date concept of women's dependancy. This is a point to which we shall return

in the context of other amendments and which I cannot explore too deeply at this stage.
That was the starting point and, in fighting the concept of dependency in the basic scheme and the subordinate position that it gives to women, we warned that the consequence would be that inequality to women would be perpetrated throughout the rest of the Government's elaborate pensions structure. These amendments prove that our warnings were entirely justified.
No one is expected to live on the basic flat-rate scheme. For that reason everyone is to have a second earnings-related pension on top of it. As my right hon. Friend has demonstrated and as we said time and again in Committee, that second-tier pension is of two entirely different qualities.
The Government's most favoured pension scheme for the earnings-related second pension is the private occupational pension scheme. Only those unfortunate enough not to be covered by one—there will be seven or eight million of them— will, to use the famous phrase in The Times this morning already quoted by my right hon. Friend, be "relegated" to the State reserve scheme. It is remarkably significant that the hon. Member for Melton (Miss Pike) should have chosen that word so instinctively to describe the inferior status of the State reserve scheme.
It is because women gat such a poor deal in the basic flat-rate scheme that it is all the more essential that they should get equality of treatment in the second tier. What have the Government done? To begin with, they have put all the emphasis on the occupational pension scheme. Then they have given women no statutory right to belong to it.
The Secretary of State has said in many a public speech that it is his hope and aim that eventually everyone will belong to an occupational pension scheme. However it is his intention to rely only upon persuasion. In the meantime he will do nothing to make the State reserve scheme competitive in terms of the level of benefit that it provides. Only those who get into the occupational pension scheme will get a really adequate coverage at the second tier stage.
The Opposition do not like the concept of the two-tier scheme for reasons


which I do not intend to elaborate now. But if we have to have one, that second tier must give everyone equality. Above all it must not discriminate purely on sex grounds. But that in effect is what the Bill will do.
We all know that the occupational pension scheme is more likely to be introduced in those areas where the employee is strongly organised, well paid and able to assert himself. It will be the lower paid and above all the women who will be relegated to the State reserve scheme unless we give them an equal statutory right with men to belong to a private occupational one. Therefore, is not it elementary natural justice to say that women could have the right by law to belong to the better scheme? I repeat— and I can make quotations to support my assertion—that the Under-Secretary has never concealed the fact that he knows the occupational scheme is the better one.
It may be a tragedy that we have to embody these basic rights for women in the law of the land. It is a pity that we cannot leave them to negotiations across the collective bargaining table. But all our history shows that we cannot. We could not even leave to the negotiating table the establishment of that basic right for women to the same pay for the same work. We had to legislate for it. In so far as pensions are recognised as being deferred pay, so we must legislate for equality of rights for women in pensions. If we do not we shall have a continuance of the present situation where, of those in full time manual work, 17·9 per cent. of women are in occupational pension schemes compared with 46·2 per cent. of men—perhaps because the men are better organised or perhaps because the men are in better jobs. Whatever the reason, that is the fact. It will continue unless we say that where an employer introduces an occupational pension scheme for his employees, women employees must have an equal right to membership with men.
That proposition is not merely a matter of common justice. It is one of political consistency. The House will remember our debates on the Equal Pay (No. 2) Bill, which I had the honour to introduce and to get on to the statute book. At the time that Bill was before the House the TUC represented to me that it would be

meaningless unless it was accompanied by equal rights for women in employers' pension schemes. By the time that Bill reached its Report stage, I was under a great deal of pressure from a number of my right lion, and hon. Friends to accept an amendment giving equality of pension rights to women as part of that Bill. I announced to the House that, as I wanted to be sure to get that Bill on to the statute book without delay—and how right I was has been proved by events—I did not wish to hold up the Bill by complicating it with what would have to be very detailed consideration of what constituted equality of pension rights under any employer's pension scheme.
But I gave a pledge that the Labour Government would introduce equal pension rights for women, by legislation, before the Equal Pay Act came into full operation at the end of 1975. Hon. Gentlemen and right hon. Gentlemen opposite, then on these benches, welcomed it, and seemed to imply what a pity it was we had not been able to incorporate that provision in the Bill itself.

4.30 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Social Services (Sir Keith Joseph): The right hon. Lady is speaking now as if she gave an unqualified undertaking to the House at that time. What she said was:
The legislation will prescribe a suitable date for equalising men's and women's pension rights, taking due account of any inherent differences between men and women in regard to pension needs."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th May 1970; Vol. 801, c. 1789.]
Does she deny that?

Mrs. Castle: Of course I will not deny my own words. I will come in a moment to the point about the accrual rate, but the right hon. Gentleman is showing that he is suffering from lack of attendance at Committee stage because otherwise he would have known that there are two sharply differentiated points in our amendments, and two separate matters of principle, on which the House will have a chance to vote and to make a decision in a short while.
The point I am arguing at present on Amendment No. 53 is merely that where a pension scheme is introduced by an employer, women shall have equal rights with the men who belong to it. There is no possible way of saying that that does not


fall within the definition of equal pension rights, even taking account of differing needs. I am saying that it is a complicated matter, and that is why I could not legislate at that time. That is what I am coming to as a separate point.
I ask the House to recognise on Amendment 53, and I ask the Secretary of State to realise on Amendment 53, that if the Secretary of State is rejecting it he is rejecting the right of women to belong to an occupational pension scheme covering the men in the same firm. Just that. I defy anybody in this House to say that we can talk about equal pension rights and not give that elementary form of equality.
When I moved this amendment in Committee, then known as the famous Amendment 205 on which Members have been lobbied since by various women's organisations, the Under-Secretary of State had two alternative but equally astonishing replies. The first was that he tried to say, "Oh, but we have given women equal right to membership in our Bill because if they are not allowed into an occupational pension scheme they have to be in the State reserve scheme." What a glorious definition of equality. If they are not allowed by the employer into the better scheme, then they can go into the inferior scheme. The Under-Secretary of State himself described it as an inferior scheme. In case he tries to deny that, let me remind the House of the exact words he used on 6th March:
The chances are that in the majority of cases members of occupational pension schemes will have a higher level of cover than is the case in the reserve scheme."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee E, 6th March, 1973, c. 821.]
So if we want to give women a chance to be in the better scheme, then we must give them the right to be in an occupational scheme. That argument was self-evident, but then the hon. Gentleman came out with his real answer which is behind the Government's injustice to women throughout this Bill. He said: "Oh, but if we insist that women have the right to belong to a private scheme as well as the men, some occupational pension schemes will just fold up." In other words, the employers will not be prepared to take on the liability of sex equality. That was the attitude

employers took to equal pay. That is why we had to legislate for it. If we now want to make equal pay a reality, then we have to legislate for this basic equal pension right.
The Government paid lip service to the Equal Pay Bill, said it did not go far enough. I cannot tell the House how many improvements the Government said ought to have been made in it, yet once they had conned the women of this country in the last election and were taking responsibility from that Front Bench they changed their tune. That is why, for instance, they are not carrying out the provisions of the Equal Pay Act that would have given women 90 per cent. of the men's rate by the end of this year. That is why they are refusing to legislate on equal pension rights.
Therefore, I say to the House that I do not believe anyone who has ever paid lip service to sex equality can possibly fail to support Amendment No. 53. I dare say all members of the House have had a further communication from Women's National Commission reiterating their support for this amendment, as has the National Joint Council of Working Women's Organisations. That is what the women's nationwide representatives want to see this House do this afternoon.
I turn to the second aspect of equality, that is, the need for equality of accrual rates. Here again there is a very close link between the State reserve scheme and the occupational pension scheme.
Our Amendments Nos. 155 and 156 would eliminate the low accrual rate for women in the State reserve scheme. We talked about the same thing in Committee about the occupational pension scheme. We said we thought it was intolerable that the return in pension for a man should be 1 per cent. of his reckonable earnings and that it should be only 0·70 per cent. for the women.
Here, of course, the Government will come out with their actuarial argument. That is why I believe that the amendments which my right hon. Friend moved earlier are so important. The Government will argue that this different and lower return in pension for women on the same reckonable earnings is due to the fact that women retire earlier and that they live longer. Indeed, in our debate on the difference in accrual rates on


occupational pension schemes, the Undersecretary of State said that women, because of these two factors, draw their pensions for 19½ years on average compared with 12 years in the case of men.
There are two answers to this. First and foremost, women have never run away from the need to equalise the retirement age. Women have never asked for an extra bonus as far as the retirement age is concerned. That is why it is the women who have said that the retirement pension should be equalised. Clearly, one cannot and should not raise the compulsory retirement age of women to 65. Equally clearly, the Government are not prepared to bring the men's retirement age down to 60 to bring them into line. That is why we argued the point in Committee. My right hon. Friend has argued it very effectively here again this afternoon. We are in favour of flexibility of retirement ages. Let us by all means link the level of pensions to the retirement age, but let us remember that the present statutory retirement age is imposed on women by this House. Here again, should not they be given the option of working longer for a higher pension and, equally, should not men who want to retire earlier be given the opportunity plus the appropriate pension rate?
But this sharp difference in the pensions which will be payable to women and to men also arises from the Government taking into account in the case of women a factor which they do not take into account in the case of anyone else, namely, their longevity. The difference of seven and a half years between the duration of the pensions of women and men is not entirely accounted for by the difference in the retirement age. Three years of it is accounted for by the fact that women live longer. But we do not say that different types of male workers shall be penalised according to their life expectation. Non-manual workers have a longer expectation of life in retirement than do manual workers, yet no one suggests that a non-manual worker should because of that get a lower pension.
We deeply protest at this simple act of sex discrimination against women, particularly because women, being largely among the lower paid, will in any case receive inadequate pensions. To reduce those inadequate pensions still further because women live longer is to condemn

women to live longer in the poverty by which they are penalised because they manage to survive. If we accept the principle of equality, there are ways of overcoming the difference in the retirement age, and that is the only difference that should be taken into account.
Finally, Amendment No. 152 provides that when the Government set up the Reserve Pension Board which will operate the State reserve scheme women should form at least one-third of the membership. Here again, I moved an amendment in similar terms in connection with the Occupational Pensions Board. After all, women represent one-third of the working population. Women have been discriminated against in pay and in pensions in the past and will still be discriminated against. It is therefore vital that their needs should be represented strongly on the boards which will operate both schemes.
When I raised this subject in Committee in the context of the Occupational Pensions Board, the Under-Secretary of State told me that I need have no fears, the Government would choose the members on their merits. He thought that I would be pleasantly surprised when I saw the announcement of the membership of the Occupational Pensions Board. I am still waiting for that pleasant surprise. The first announcement was of the chairman and the vice-chairman, neither of whom was a woman—naturally, from the point of view of the Government. On 18th April six more members of the Occupational Pensions Board were announced—all pensions managers, representatives of pensions companies or actuaries—not a woman among them.
I am confident that we shall have the same experience when the appointments to the Reserve Pension Board are announced unless the Government's hands are tied by the House accepting Amendment No. 152. Women have remained" under-privileged because of the lack of a positive attitude about their needs. The Government have not begun to grasp, tried to cope with or even accepted that those needs exist. The House is far more sensitive on this issue than are the Government, and the way to show that sensitivity is to assert the rights of women by accepting these amendments.

4.45 p.m.

Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: The right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) described the proposals in this Bill as an insult and injury to the women of this country. That is sheer unadulterated nonsense. On Second Reading the Bill was welcomed as the biggest step forward in combating poverty that this country had taken for many years. There were a few snags, one of which was that women could not build up higher contributions under the scheme by choosing to work beyond the minimum retirement age should they wish to do so.
I have with me the report of the National Council of Women which states very clearly that it is:
in favour of a flexible retiring age for both men and women which would take account of individual circumstances such as health, work pattern, size of family and so on.
In Committee and behind the scenes many hon. Members have impressed on my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State the need to introduce flexibility. I was delighted when I read his Amendment No. 91, which largely meets this point.
This subject is of particular importance in my constituency where there are a large number of women hospital workers including nurses and other professional workers who often come to me to ask why, if they work beyond 60, they cannot build up a better pension. They may have interrupted service. If they are single women they may have been looking after elderly dependants and when the time comes for them to resume work they want to have the chance to build up a higher pension.
A lady came to my surgery recently who wanted to opt back into the occupational scheme because her husband had suddenly become disabled—

Mr. Dell: Amendment No. 91 is a response by the Government to an amendment which I moved in Committee on which, I acknowledge, I had the support of hon. Members on the Government benches. The Under-Secretary of State agreed to consider my amendment and, as a result, Amendment No. 91 has been tabled.
The hon. Member for Lancaster (Mrs. Kellett-Bowman) may not yet have appreciated that the fact that the Govern-

ment have tabled Amendment No. 91 makes even more unjust than before the rates of accrual provided for women in Table 18. If they wish voluntarily to go for a higher retirement age their rates of acrual should on a pure actuarial basis be much closer to the figures given for men. The hon. Lady is therefore emphasising the importance of the arguments advanced by the Opposition.

Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman's observations. I have here the answer that was given to him on 28th March 1973 which contains all the available figures. There is, in fact, considerable flexibility. The pensions which women will be able to earn will be nearer those which men can earn, with the slight difference of the death grant, widows' pensions, and other matters which we must acknowledge affect the actuarial basis of women's contributions.
The right, hon. Member for Blackburn did not take sufficiently into account that many women greatly value their option not to have to pay into the State basic scheme. Indeed, three out of four working women exercise this option. They are anxious to hang on to this privilege We promised in our election manifesto that they would be allowed to do so. This, therefore, is a fulfilment of that election pledge by which I stand and will continue to stand. Nevertheless, I think it is also important that they should have this chance of building up a better contribution record and a better pension under the State reserve scheme. I believe that under Amendment No. 91 they will get it.

Mr. Brian O'Malley: Is the hon. Lady aware that she is under a considerable misapprehension if she believes, as she has just stated, that as a result of Amendment No. 91 women's pensions will not be much smaller than men's? In fact the accrual rates will remain exactly the same, even if some flexibility is introduced, and the overall position will be that the woman's pension will be 30 per cent. less than that received by a man.

Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: I believe we made very considerable progress in this Bill and have made further progress with the amendments which the Secretary of State has put forward. I believe the majority of women will regard this as a


very big step forward. Those of us who have worked for many years for the advancement of the cause of women do not expect to leap into equality at one fell swoop, but we appreciate the steady progress we have made, are making and will continue to make under the Conservative Government as opposed to the large amount of talk we had from the last Government.
There is, however, one point on which I must admit that I support the right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn. That is on the absolute right for a woman to join an occupational pension scheme at the same age as that at which a man can join. I think that women should be allowed to do so because too many women do not take a keen interest in pensions schemes, probably because in the first few years of their service they cannot acquire enough years to qualify for preservation. Preservation is as important to women as it is to men. Therefor I am anxious that they should be able to build up a very good preservation right especially because they may have to change jobs willy-nilly not because of their own promotion but simply because their husbands move to other jobs and the home has to be moved elsewhere.
I very much welcome the tremendous efforts made by the Secretary of State to meet points which we raised with him and many other points such as that of enabling women who marry men over pensionable age also to have an occupational pension when their husbands die before them. It was a great injustice that they could not do so before and it is a very important point to be taken into consideration. We thank the Secretary of State very much for the great step forward he has made for women.

Mr. Alec Jones: I am very sorry that the hon. Lady the Member for Lancaster (Mrs. Kellett-Bowman) was not with us in Committee. She would certainly have enlightened us there. At the same time she would have learned a great deal about this Bill.
The hon. Lady referred to what my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) had said as "sheer unadulterated nonsense", but judging from correspondence which I have received from women's organisations throughout

the country I think women are more in agreement with the views of my right hon. Friend than with the views expressed by the hon. Member for Lancaster this afternoon. The hon. Lady also said that she did not expect any great leap forward by this Government. I agree with her on that. I hardly expect them to make one gradual step forward. I call attention to a document which has been circulated to hon. Members and which I am sure the hon. Lady will have received. It is from the National Council of Women. It says:
We see in this Bill little reflection of the social changes which are now taking place in our society and especially the rapidly changing position of women both in and outside the home.
I should have thought that that comment summarises the views of the campaign in criticism of the inadequate provisions for women made in this Bill. Letters I have received from women's organisations have all expressed complete dissatisfaction about the provisions for women made in the Bill. That is a reason why I support my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell), who drew our attention to the scheme outlined in his new Clause 1 and Amendment No. 131. He seeks to improve the Bill in two ways—first to eliminate the discrimination against women and secondly, as a by-product, to make it easier for men to retire below the statutory age of 65. Both these objectives are particularly commendable. We have the alternative Amendments Nos. 155 and 156 which support the idea of equal accrual rights for men and women.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn was right to concentrate on the occupational scheme and the State reserve scheme because both will become increasingly important for women as more and more women go to work. It is envisaged by the Government that they will be in one or other scheme and it seems that they will be more likely to be driven into the inadequate State reserve scheme. If so, the Reserve Pension Board will have very important functions in controlling and managing the scheme in the interests of both men and women. Therefore, Amendment No. 152, which seeks to place a statutory responsibility on the Reserve Pension Board to consist one-third of women, is a right


reflection because the fund will cover so many women members.
In talking of the membership and composition of the board it is right to consider it reasonable that women should be members. Everyone would agree that they are most likely to be beneficiaries and that large numbers of them will be contributors. The chances are that the Minister will say, as he has said in the past, "There is nothing in the Bill to stop women being members of this board" and that he expects them to be members. That is a little naive because in practice we know that in all such organisations when this is left to chance and natural selection takes place, few, if any, women are appointed. We therefore wish to place a statutory obligation on the Minister.
As my right hon. Friend pointed out, up to date no woman has been included among those whose names have been announced as members. In view of women's liberation and the antidiscrimination campaign, the Government are extremely unwise to ignore the view of so many women—and also men—that women should have the right of places on these boards. The amendment suggests that women members should comprise one-third of the membership. That is a price which the Government ought to pay. They should accept the amendment.

5.0 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Stewart-Smith: I think that I can claim some personal responsibility for this matter being discussed now by my abstaining on a vote on this subject in Committee. I demand quite clearly that the Government should encourage the Occupational Pensions Board to use its powers to make mandatory the right of women to be given access to occupational pension schemes. Nothing less is good enough. We must not be fobbed off with the red herring of longevity or early retirement. That is not the problem. The crux of the matter is their right to have an occupational pension. That is something from which we must not move.
Why should women be so penalised? It seems absolutely indefensible. Such discrimination as may be allowed to go through is totally unacceptable to me. If

we claim to be the party of antidiscrimination and allow this measure to go through as it stands, what we are saying is outrageous humbug and will not do. As I understand it, the Anti-Discrimination Bill specifically excludes equality for women in the State reserve scheme. This seems to epitomise the injustice. Someone ought to have a word with the Prime Minister and remind him that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
Since our party is rather dependent on women, we cannot afford to have a lot of scornful supporters. Otherwise we shall have no supporters at all. By objecting to the Government's policy at the moment we may actually incur short-term displeasure but long-term gratitude. I wish to quote a question I asked the Minister on 13th March during the Committee proceedings. I asked him:
can my hon. Friend tell me whether there is a demand by women for higher pensions, as expressed through women's organisations? More important, is there evidence that women are prepared to pay more contributions to get higher pensions? "—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee E, 13th March 1973; c. 901.]
We all know from the National Women's Commission and other organisations that there is this will in the country. As has been so ably explained by others, this is a rising trend in society and our party must face up to it and meet it. I hope that the Government will accept that for once the Opposition have got something right. I trust that the Government will find it possible to accept this innocuous clause.

Mr. George Cunningham: I congratulate the hon. Member for Belper (Mr. Stewart-Smith) on his independent standpoint, which he showed on other occasions in Committee. Occasionally marginally regrettable things may happen as a result of back benchers not doing what their Front Benchers tell them to do. On the whole the good government of the country is better preserved by back benchers doing what they think is right, because the Treasury Bench has no monopoly of wisdom. Indeed, sometimes it seems to have lost all access to it.
On this issue as on all others I would encourage everyone to reach his own conclusions and to require the Government to state their reasons openly. If


they are not then convinced, they should use their vote accordingly. It is rare that parliamentary democracy raises her lovely head in this Chamber. I hope that she will rear it once or twice in the course of the Bill.
I apologise to my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell) in that I was not able to hear his opening remarks. I may to some extent duplicate them. There are three reasons why women's pensions should by conventional standards be actuarily different from those of men—they have a longer life, they retire earlier and men have to pay for a widow's pension while women do not have to pay for a widower's pension because they do not get it.
The most important of these is early retirement. That constitutes by far the greatest part of the differential between men and women. Figures which the Minister gave some weeks ago, which apply irrespective of age, show that the difference between the accrual rates of men and those of women, assuming that they both retire at the same age—and that was the only difference from present factors—would be as low as 5 per cent.
If women were paying for their longer life out of their contributions and men were paying for the widow's pension out of their contributions, the two factors would operate in opposite directions. They would not balance exactly. The result would be that on that basis women would receive a lower pension for the same input as men but the difference would be enormously reduced and it would be approximately 5 per cent. less than that of the man. I see that the Minister acknowledges that my arithmetic is right. If that is the case, then the difference is so small that we might as well ignore it.
If we did ignore it and all human beings paid for those two benefits without differentiation of sex, the result would be that women would be using their contributions to pay for the pensions of men's widows but men would be using part of their contributions to pay for the longer life of women. The difference would then come down to less than 5 per cent. because we would split the difference between the 100 per cent. and the 95 per cent. and both would end up with benefits which were approximately 98 per

cent, of those provided for men in Schedule 18.
There are some women who do not take the point that if women retire earlier than men they have to pay for that. I would not have any truck with any suggestion that women should not pay for that facility. Women will be easily convinced that they can expect equality only if they retire at the same age as men. What these figures show is that once they have accepted that element of equality there is nothing else of any volume to stand in the way of completely un-differentiated treatment of the two sexes for pension purposes.
At the moment because women live longer they have to pay for it. It is rather hard that throughout the whole length and breadth of the country there are widows living alone in poverty with no one to look after them or care for them. They did not ask to live longer than their husbands. In many cases they regret it. To impose upon them a financial penalty because the Almighty has ordained that they must put up with life after their life companion is gone seems so immoral and unacceptable that I feel that in due course this House will entirely reject such a concept.
This, I suggest, is the time to reject it. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead has provided an easy and sensible way of doing so by stating that for those who retire at the same age there shall be the same retirement benefit available for the same input. The Secretary of State is nodding. In that case I hope that he will vote for my right hon. Friend's clause.

Sir K. Joseph: Sir K. Joseph indicated dissent.

Mr. Cunningham: It seems that I have misinterpreted the right hon. Gentleman's nodding.
That is surely an objective which we ought to pursue. It is something which ought to come very soon. It has about it the smell of something which is coming soon, however much the Treasury Bench fiddles away and tries to delay. It will come, and pretty soon. If the Government do not want to take credit for introducing it, a Labour Government will be almost certain to do it very soon after taking office. I hope that on those grounds Conservative Members will


exercise their rights and vote for the clause.

Mrs. Sally Oppenheim: I am a trespasser in this debate because I was not a member of the Standing Committee. Therefore I apologise if my lack of knowledge of the Bill shows from time to time. I am fundamentally in sympathy with the objectives of the clause moved by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell) and with many of the complementary amendments. He criticised my hon. and right hon. Friends for their actuarial assessment of the cost involved and of the real cost. He was delightfully vague about the cost and how it was to be met.
We must all draw the conclusion that he meant that the cost would be met by means of the somewhat hackneyed and well-known Socialist recourse to higher taxation.
The right hon. Member would do well on this point to reflect that although the last Socialist Government of which he was a member massively increased taxes they came nowhere near to the record of this Government in increasing benefits. We have a Government who have managed to do this at the same time as massively cut taxes.

Mr. Dell: The hon. Lady was not on the Committee and says she does not know the Bill well, but she must address herself to the argument. I am suggesting a 4 per cent. contribution. I am not suggesting any subsidy from the taxpayer under the new clause. I am suggesting no more transfer within the body of the reserve pension scheme than, as I have said, takes place between the non-manual worker and the manual worker. There is no question of a subsidy. The hon. Lady is on a false point. I suggest that she does what her heart tells her to do and supports the new clause.

Mrs. Sally Oppenheim: I entirely accept that the right hon. Gentleman believes that the cost could be met out of the 4 per cent. increase in contribution. I am sure he says that with sincerity. But I believe that in practice it would be found that part of it would have to be met from taxation, for a variety of reasons. The philosophy behind what the right hon. Gentleman says has a basic

fallacy because in the long run the increases in taxation that would, I believe, have to be made, despite the right hon. Gentleman's assurances, would not deprive the rich man of one hot dinner but would deprive the widow—[An HON. MEMBER: "What increase?"] The increase to which I am referring is an increase in taxation which I maintain would have to be made to provide fully for the measures in the new clause and the complementary amendments. [?Interruption.] I do understand that the philosophy behind the proposals the cost of which in terms of taxation would not bring help to those whom we are all seeking to help.
I noticed that the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) spoke to her amendment in support of her right hon. Friend with considerable vehemence. There has been some distortion, both in the debate and in correspondence in the Press, about the likely effect on women of this Bill. The right hon. Lady apologised, as she has done in the case of the anti-discrimination amendment to her Equal Pay Act, that she did not have time to include equal pension rights for women in her Act. We all know the reason. It was that the Leader of the Opposition, who was then Prime Minister, had to cut and run for the cover of a general election.
I have always recognised and acknowledged the right hon. Lady's considerable talents and abilities. She does herself less than credit in her aggressive approach to the problem. In view of the record of the last Government on women's rights and interests, she should be on the defensive rather than the offensive. My hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. Stewart-Smith) said, in relation to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. If that is the case, the Prime Minister is in very good shape, in view of the number of measures introduced by the present Government in the interests of women.

Mrs. Castle: Without going into historical argument, we have a simple opportunity in Amendment No. 53 to vote for the principle that women have an equal right with men to belong to an occupational pension scheme of their firm. Will the hon. Lady support that?

5.15 p.m.

Mrs. Sally Oppenheim: I entirely accept what the right hon. Lady says. I have told the House that I have a great deal of sympathy with the objectives of the amendment, and particularly with the aspect of the problem that the right hon. Lady has just mentioned. I shall not vote for it—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"]—for reasons that I shall explain.
The right hon. Member for Birken-head claimed that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State had tabled Amendment No. 91 in response to his appeal in Committee. I do not think that it really matters whether he did so in response to the right hon. Gentleman or in response to the considerable concern expressed by many hon. Members on this side that as a result of a Bill which constitutes an important measure of reform women might be at a disadvantage with regard to their second pension rights. Whoever provoked it, I welcome my right hon. Friend's amendment.
Underlying the inequality in women's pension rights that has persisted throughout the years under successive Governments is the anachronistic attitude that regards women as fundamentally the dependants. Naturally, both social changes and divided opinions call for a much more flexible approach to women's pension rights than we have in 1973, let alone 1975. But I feel that the Government's amendment is imaginative and valuable. In giving women the option to retire later and receive a higher pension—admittedly, not necessarily as high a pension as a man's—it takes due note of the fact that social change is gradual, and that changes in attitudes are even more gradual. It also takes note of the fact that it is fair, right and proper to give women the option to work longer for a higher pension during what is, after all, a transition period in the achievement of full equal rights for women; it is only a transition period, much as many of us must regret that.
While no widespread or co-ordinated research has taken place among women as to whether the majority of them would like to work longer to qualify for a higher pension, I have no doubt that if such research took place it would be found that the vast majority of women would

welcome that option. It is particularly valuable in certain categories. Some have already been mentioned—single women alone or with elderly dependants, women divorced, deserted or widowed in early middle age whose children have grown up and left home. The economic advantages for such women in terms of continued earnings and a higher pension is self-evident. But the social advantages are perhaps even greater, because, if a woman is fit, those extra five years of work can not only help her to maintain her independence but can help her to avoid what, particularly for those women, is usually the loneliest and most unfulfilled period of a woman's life. Therefore, I welcome the Government's amendment, which will go a considerable way towards dealing with the problem.
I am not one of those who support what is often an understandable trade union view that we should be moving towards earlier retirement for both men and women. My personal view is that the economic, social and psychological advantages for both men and women in being able to continue to work as long as the normal retirement age demands is indisputable, more particularly at a time when there is a much more widespread acceptance of the need for job satisfaction and job enrichment. That is equally true of men and women, and not just the dis-advantaged group of women that I have already mentioned.
However, I reject the new clause and the amendments, with which I have already said I am fundamentally in sympathy, because the right hon. Gentleman has not convinced me that he has told us what the real cost will be of implementing the new clause—[Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman talks about 4 per cent.

Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: Does my hon. Friend accept that we do not appear to have an opportunity to vote on Amendment No. 53?

Mrs. Sally Oppenheim: I accept that.
The distortion in the arguments of Opposition Members is that they have given the impression that the Bill specifically prevents women from joining occupational pension schemes. I admit that it does not help them to do so to


the extent that I should like, but it does not prevent them from joining.
Women have always had to fight every inch of the way in the achievement of women's rights. We have never achieved them easily. This is a matter that women throughout the country will want to continue to fight for.
I cannot condemn, for not writing into the Bill this particular provision, a Government, and particularly my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, who have done so much for women's interests and women's pension rights. The Government have also done a great deal with regard to the tax benefits that will accrue to divorced women from the fact that maintenance payments will not be classed as unearned income. They have helped the young widows denied a pension by the previous Government; the older widows denied the age allowance; the war widow now entitled to war widow pension, even regardless of the reason for her husband's death, if he has been a war pensioner and she has received constant attendance allowance.

Mr. George Cunningham: I am trying to understand the hon. Lady's argument, but I am having some difficulty. Do I take it that she thinks that women are engaged in a fight and that we should not let them win it, because that would stop them going on fighting? That seemed to be the burden of her argument.

Mrs. Sally Oppenheim: Not at all. I refute that as being the motivation for what I said. I regret that women have had to fight every inch of the way, but above all I acknowledge that the present Government have helped them on the way over and over again.

Mr. Cunningham: But they will have to go on fighting.

Mrs. Sally Oppenheim: Good. That is exactly what we should do. Many of us on this side wish to see women having equal opportunity to join occupational pension schemes. But I have regard to the circumstances of the Bill, of the concessions given and the Government's achievements in connection with women's interests, not least with pensions, and perhaps most of all in the annual review of pensions, apart from the reforming

aspect of the Bill itself. Therefore, much as I regret that women will still have to fight for equal opportunity the occupational pension rights, I do not think that it is fair to press such a progressive Government to write the provision into the Bill.

Mr. Michael Meacher: The views expressed by the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mrs. Sally Oppenheim) about how much the Government have done for women in the Bill may well reflect her sincerity, but they also reflect her grave lack of knowledge and understanding of the Bill.
The group of amendments goes to the heart of one of the aspects of the Bill— the grave discrimination against women throughout the Bill. It is a defect of the Bill that has been well recognised in the country. Many hon. Members will have received correspondence from several organisations representing women, protesting at the grave discrimination against women throughout the Bill. The one that has already been mentioned is the message from the National Council of Women, which is the most important because that body is represented within the Cabinet Secretariat, and it is bipartisan. For example, the Secretary of State for Education and Science has played a prominent part in it. Therefore, hon. Members on both sides can listen to what it says. It wrote that:
We strongly deprecate the fact that under Clause 75(2) a personal pension for a woman earner is to be at a rate 30 per cent. less than for a man.
I should tell the hon. Member for Lancaster (Mrs. Kellett-Bowman) that that will still continue to be the case even if Amendment No. 91 is accepted. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda, West (Mr. Alec Jones)—

Sir K. Joseph: Will the hon. Gentleman repeat his last sentence, finishing with the words, "even if Amendment No. 91 were passed"? It is my fault that I missed what the hon. Gentleman said.

Mr. Meacher: I am glad to repeat what I said. I indicated that the statement of the National Council of Women that there will be a pension rate 30 per cent. less for women than men will still continue to be the case even if Amendment No. 91 is


passed. I am glad to see that the right hon. Gentleman assents to that view.

Sir K. Joseph: No, I indicated that I understood it.

Mr. Meacher: I invite the right hon. Gentleman to assent. It is an important point and one of the patent forms of discrimination.
I am sure that myy hon. Friend the m Member for Rhondda, West will also agree. My hon. Friend quoted the Women's National Commission statement on 21st February this year, which said that there is little reflection of social changes now taking place in our society. I am sure that he will agree with me that after Committee stage, after all these points had been made fully and forcefully, the position still continues to be as true as it was several months ago when the Committee stage started.
I commend to the House new Clause I, which was so ably moved, as was often the case throughout the Committee stage, by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell). It deals with the key fact that the earlier retirement factor rather than the longer life factor as the situation which leads to a lower pension for women. It is the overcoming of that factor which is bound to prevent and which has prevented women from getting an equal pension.
As women live longer they are roughly balanced with the cost of allocating a man's pension to his widow's benefit. New Clause 1 goes in an ingenious manner to the root of a vexed issue which has been with us for the best part of a decade, if not considerably longer. Certainly we have been aware of it in the last decade. It merely suggests that there shall be separate ages for retirement between 60 and 65. That means that in considering the rate of pension for any human being consideration will be given to the date on which retirement took place and not the sex of the person who has retired.
I make that point because of the figures which were given in Committee by the Under-Secretary of State. I ask the hon. Member for Gloucester to pay attention to this point. The extra cost which the hon. Lady alleges is bound to be involved will, in fact, not be involved. There might be a very small or a marginal extra cost which could well be

accounted for by men in the form of a very small cross-subsidy. The hon. Lady is quite wrong to think that there will be a substantial extra cost. If she had had the privilege of being a member of the Committee she would understand that that is the case.
I assure the hon. Member for Lancaster that the Opposition will give her the chance to vote on Amendment No. 53. I am glad to know that there is considerable sympathy. I hope that that will be registered in the voting for this set of amendments and, in particular, for Amendment No. 53.
There are in the Bill—I am not just making a political point—several forms of discrimination against women. I shall list them briefly. The first form is that which Amendment No. 53 seeks to remedy. It is the case at present, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) said, that only 18 per cent. of full-time manual women workers are members of occupational pension schemes compared with 46 per cent. of men. If we consider other schemes the proportion for women is 47 per cent. and 74 per cent. for men. No one can suggest that that enormous difference is the result of women's free choice. I do not understand how the Government can fail, in all equity, to support Amendment No. 53.

5.30 p.m.

Mr. Robert Boscawen: Surely the point is that occupational pension schemes are voluntary schemes and if the private employer does not want to go ahead with them he can close them down. That would not be to the advantage of pensioners or women.

Mr. Meacher: That is a remarkable admission of the possibilities for discrimination that are inherent in the scheme. It is an admission that the Government are far more concerned about promoting the advancement and spread of occupational pension schemes than they are about giving a fair deal to women. It is precisely that situation which we are seeking to remove from the Bill.

Mrs. Sally Oppenheim: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the disparity in the figures between men and women regarding the membership of occupational pension schemes is caused by the fact that


women are, on the whole, earning very much less than men, and that as we rise towards equal pay the disparity will begin to disappear?

Mr. Meacher: It might be the case that as we move towards greater equality of pay the number might increase, but that is not the point which is at issue, which is that women should have the same right even if they are at a lower earning level at present. There is patent discrimination if they do not have the right.
We were told in Committee by the Under-Secretary of State that the right already existed because if women were not members of occupational pension schemes then they were members of the reserve pension scheme. That is an extraordinary statement for a Minister to make.
Secondly, there are roughly 15 million people employed in the private sector and nearly a third of that number are women. Looking at the number excluded from occupation pension schemes, one million out of 1·6 million are women— about two-thirds. In other words, compared with men, women suffer an exclusion rate about twice as great.
Thirdly, the British Institute of Management's survey shows that some women are not able to join occupational pension schemes until they are aged 30. The reasons for that are well understood but the reasons do not commend themselves to my right hon. and hon. Friends. There should be the same age of entry for women as for men.
Fourthly, roughly 1·8 million women out of 3·7 million are excluded because their employment is such that they are ineligible for inclusion in occupational pension schemes. Women are excluded as women only in a very small number of cases. They are excluded in about only 5 percent. of other schemes and about one third of manual schemes. In other words it would be necessary to make relatively few changes to meet the amendment. Women are chiefly excluded because their age of entry is made higher— in some cases it is 30—because their period of service is too short and, above all, because their employment is ineligible. That is surely unfair to women.
Perhaps the most important form of discrimination is the level of pension

which women receive. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead put down a pertinent question to the Secretary of State on 1st March this year. He asked what would be the pension rights accruing to men and women if the Bill, by 1973, had been in operation for 40 years. That would give the best indication, in today's money values, of what it is worth. One can quote figures for 20 years, 30 years or 40 years which look abnormally large. That is because of the 3 percent. compound uprating.
Taking today's figures—the figure which I have selected is, I think, the fairest—a woman on average earnings, if the Bill had been in operation for 40 years, would gain an extra pension on top of the basic pension of only £1·56. That is the pathetically small and derisory second pension about which the Government have made so much in their boastings about the value of a two-tier pension. An extra £1·56 is not enough to take someone on the basic pension out of poverty. The difference between the basic pension and the supplementary benefit line, plus rent, is substantially more than £1·56. Therefore, a woman on average earnings, not low paid, when the scheme had been in operation for 40 years, would be left with a pension that was still beneath the supplementary benefit line. If that is not discrimination and does not show what a shoddy Bill this is, I do not know what does.
If one takes the basic pension unrated in line with national average earnings, not merely in line with price protection, and adds that to the Government's figures given in HANSARD of 2nd March of minimum personal pensions under Clause 51(7), a woman would need to earn a wage of £40 a week and to contribute all her working life to get a pension above the supplementary benefit poverty line. How many women today earn above £2,000 a year when they have little more than 60 percent. of men's average wages, which are £36 a week? In other words, very few women will, by their own right, be able to get a pension under the Bill above the supplementary benefit line.
There are three reasons given by the Government for rejecting the new Clause and the amendments. I have already made clear how great is the discrimination and how poor is the deal for women under the Bill.
First, there is the longevity argument— that women get lower pensions because they live longer. Why should not manual workers and those who suffer from chronic ill-health and therefore live shorter lives get a bigger pension? They do not. This is a form of discrimination which women alone suffer.
The second argument is that they have lower pay. But, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn said, if the Government are sincere about the lowness of pay, why have they not brought in this year the 90 percent. gearing under the Equal Pay Act? They have not, and to that extent this remains a serious problem.
The only major issue is the question of the earlier retirement age. New Clause 1 overcomes this problem in a way which is compatible with virtually no cross subsidy. Of course, it is possible to solve the problem in other ways, and others of the amendments suggest these possibilities.
The Government's argument is that women get actuarial equivalence. How many women, informed that they were to get actuarial equivalence under the Bill, would regard it as a particularly thrilling offer? The Government mean that the 0·7 percent. and the 1 percent. accrued rates were arrived at because they actuarily result from equal contributions by men and women. In other words, it is a contributions test, not a benefits test. But that is no justification, because what matters is the result, not the means by which a particular result is achieved.
The Government argue that if employers had the extra cost of providing an equal pension for women thrust upon them, they would merely exclude women from occupational pension schemes. One would hope that if they attempted to do that there would be non-recognition of the particular scheme.
Alternatively, the cost can be met through extra charges for men or for women. There are a number of permutations of the ways by which this can be done. I insist that the argument deployed by the Under-Secretary in Committee— namely, that the contribution rate for women would increase from 80p to £1·20 —is untrue, not only for the reasons given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead but for the reason that, even if the new clause were not accepted and a form of cross subsidy were used, all the

extra contributions need not and would not be loaded on to women.
I return to the central point that it is difficult, but not impossible, to get equality for women within the structure of the Bill. I submit that the only way to get equality for women is through a good, comprehensive, Crossman-type State scheme which includes men and women on an equal basis. There is little point the hon. Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) laughing at that suggestion. Perhaps she can suggest how it is possible within the Bill to get equality. I hope she may feel that the proper way to do it is by supporting the new clause. That would greatly improve the Bill. However, the only proper way is to accept the kind of national superannuation scheme which we put forward and certainly provides the best deal for women, and when we return to it in a modified form after the next election they will certainly have it.

Mr. Norman Lamont (Kingston-upon Thames): I have considerable sympathy with the new clause and amendments moved by the Opposition, though I wish that they had been moved in a slightly less partisan way and acknowledged some of the real practical difficulties involved.
I suppose it would be pointless to complain that so much Press coverage of the Bill has concentrated on this aspect, thus obscuring some of the most important, far-reaching and welcome aspects of the Bill. That is not surprising, because social security is about women and their financial circumstances.
Two-thirds of pensioners and 74 percent. of old-age pensioners on supplementary benefit are women. Again, among pensioners who survive into their eighties and nineties, far higher proportions are women.
The Bill does a lot to help that situation. Under the Bill, both men and women will have the right to an earnings-related pension. There is a big improvement in the cover for widows certainly well ahead of current practice in occupational pension schemes.
The Government Actuary's report indicates that only about 10 percent. of occupational pension schemes give an unconditional right to a widow's pension and only 76 percent. of occupational pension schemes cover women for death after retirement unless the contributors


have been persuaded to forgo part of their pension to buy a widow's pension. Few occupational pension schemes have the preservation of death benefit which is required under the Bill. So, in these ways the Bill is a substantial advance for women.
The hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) referred to actuarial equivalence, a third advance for women under the structure of the Bill. People draw out what they have paid in, and, after taking account of differences such as earlier retirement and greater longevity, men and women are treated alike.
Actuarial equivalence and equality are not the same. The question one must ask is whether some of these actuarial differences between the sexes should disappear in the magic of averages. In this day and age one must ask oneself whether it is right to distinguish for treatment in pensions between men and women on the grounds of greater longevity. Does that make more sense than distinguishing in longevity between manual workers and executives in pension schemes, or between manual workers in high risk occupations and manual workers in manufacturing industry generally? That sort of actuarial distinction will I suspect be increasingly difficult to maintain habitually. Today women are increasingly demanding equal opportunities at work and equal conditions of employment.
5.45 p.m.
This is a structure Bill, setting the structure from 1975 onwards. We know the present trends. We can be sure that these trends will be moving more swiftly and more strongly in 1975 and onwards. We should ask ourselves whether the structure of the Bill will be in accordance with social trends after 1975.
The question of the greater life expectancy of women is not the only factor complicating the search for equality of treatment. There is also the problem of the difference in retirement age, as the amendment recognises. Women retire earlier than men. This was a feature that the Minister welcomed in Committee, but I am not as enthusiastic as all that. I have always regarded the 65/60 difference in the national insurance scheme as being a rather regrettable feature. It was one of the aspects of the Crossman scheme

that I disliked, that it perpetuated the 65 60 difference. The tragedy is that that difference was introduced as an afterthought in the 1940 Beveridge scheme. The difference was not intended originally, but at the last moment it was thought that it might be a good way of attracting married women to work in industry.
The question we have to ask ourselves is what is the best way of getting rid of this 65/60 difference in retirement ages. One way of approaching the problem and reconciling it with the objective of equality would be to give women the full pension at the age of 60, as we do in the national insurance scheme. But that would be preferential treatment for women and would not be a wise course to pursue.
The second way would be to have some sort of flexible retirement age between 60 and 65. There are attractions in this approach, but also some difficulties. There is the social question whether one wants to encourage earlier retirement. Is not the case that one ought to encourage people to work rather longer? There is the question how the structure of the Bill, as it has been proposed that we should change it, would fit in with the national insurance scheme.
Another difficulty is the possibility of some people retiring early on an inadequate pension before the age of 65. I should be interested to hear the Secretary of State's comments on the difference between retiring at 60 compared with retiring at 65. I have the impression that in a money purchase scheme, where one's contributions are building up over the whole of one's working life, that the extra five years contributions, compared with the totality of one's working life, do not make all that much difference. Of course in occupation schemes, where in many schemes there is a massive cross subsidy between people of different ages, this subsidy might dwarf this particular problem.
The third solution to this problem is the solution that the Government have chosen, with one of their amendments. That is that women should have an option to retire at a later date and that then they would be able to have a pension more or less equivalent to that of men retiring at 65. I hope that the


Secretary of State will tell us that the pension will be exactly the same.
My calculations and the help that I have had from actuaries indicate that the longevity factor is more or less, as near as makes no difference, offset by the widow's pension provision that has to be provided through a man's contributions. Therefore, by equalising the retirement ages, it should be possible to give the same pensions.
The right hon. Member for Birken-head (Mr. Dell) said that this will still mean that women's contributions are worth less. He talked about the accrual rate. But that is not the point. The point is that women and men, under the amendment, will get the same pension. They will be treated equally in that respect. Of course it will be worth less in the sense that women's contributions do not have to provide a widower's pension, and yet are not getting a compensatory addition to the pension. This is something that we have to accept. This is what averages are all about. One category of risks and liabilities is offset against another.

Mr. Dell: The hon. Gentleman has proposed a very relevant question to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. In effect, the hon. Gentleman has asked him whether, under Amendment No. 91, a woman's pension at the retirement age of 65 would be the same as a man's pension at 65. If the answer the hon. Gentleman gets from the Secretary of State is "No, it will not be the same, because the sort of increments shown in Schedule 18 will still apply, even under Amendment No. 91 ", does the hon. Gentleman agree that the amendment could be the route to grave injustices to women because they will not get a return on their money equivalent to the return that men are getting on their money?

Mr. Lamont: I am fairly confident of the fact that the two will be at least the same as makes no difference. As there will be little difference, I am asking the Secretary of State to forget the difference and to say that they will be the same.
The only difficulty of Amendment No. 91 is whether the age of 65 is not too high. In many occupations the trend is towards retirement at 60. This is true even more of women's employment. The

amendment will be welcomed however as a first step towards bringing about complete equality of treatment, but it is not the whole answer to the problem.
This problem goes wider. I do not wish to touch on it too much. But, even if one achieved equality of treatment in occupational schemes and the reserve pension scheme, one would still be left with the very real problem that many married women will still retire on pensions which are inadequate because of the fragmented nature of their working life, and therefore their contributions. This problem will not be solved by the sort of amendments which we are discussing. Much further thought will have to be given to it.
This problem also involves the whole area of the treatment of women in occupational schemes and the sort of discrimination against them. Sometimes the entry age is manipulated in a way which acts against women. Sometimes the occupational pensions are restricted to particular grades of employment and do not include some women.
It is tempting to agree with the right hon. Member for Blackburn that there ought to be an absolute right for anyone, regardless of sex, to join an occupational pension scheme. There are various ways in which one can provide this. The Finance Act 1970 provided that approved occupational pension schemes can be legitimately restricted to a particular category of employees. I do not want to say anything further about that, except to indicate that there are a number of different ways in which membership of occupational schemes for all employees could be made obligatory.
But the major difficulty with the amendment is that the whole object of this strategy is too obtain the widest possible development of occupational pension schemes. Hon. Members of the Opposition may not agree with that objective, but that is the objective of the strategy. There is no doubt that many employers who have large numbers of female employees—many of whom will be in part-time employment and many of whom will work for a short period and then retire—who at present are prepared to set up occupational pension schemes for men alone would not, if the amendment were carried, be prepared to set them up at all.
The situation is particularly precarious in the case of the smaller employer. The hon. Member for Oldham, West referred to the British Institute of Management's survey of occupational pension schemes. That indicated quite clearly that the greatest discrimination against women was among the smaller employers and it is these people who are going to be hesitating and balancing the costs and management time involved in actually developing occupational schemes.

Mrs. Castle: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the arguments he is now using against this simple act of natural justice are exactly the arguments used against the introduction of equal pay— that it would hit the smaller employer and the firms with a large number of women employees? We were told that the consequence would be a rise in unemployment among women. Thank God women have closed their ears to that piece of masculine siren talk. They say, "We are prepared to take the risk. Do not worry about us. We just want equality". And that is what they are saying about pension schemes. What the hon. Gentleman is doing is making the remarks famous throughout the ages whenever women ask for simple national justice and equality.

Mr. Lamont: There are clear and obvious differences between moving towards equal pay, necessitating wage increases for a group of employees, and the conscious decision to opt for one type of pension scheme, an occupational pension scheme, rather than taking the easy option of going into the State reserve scheme, which removes administrative problems and saves employers devoting a large amount of time to problems they have not had to deal with before. The analogy is totally false.
I believe that this Bill marks a significant step forward for the pension rights of women. I do not believe that it is a structure that will last for all time. We shall have to make adjustments in time, but I think it is a very good platform from which further progress can be made. I am sure this Bill will be widely welcomed by women for that reason.

6.0 p.m.

Sir Brandon Rhys Williams: After this long debate

want to make only a short contribution. I have a great deal of sympathy with the campaign of the right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) to secure absolute equality of treatment for women in the Social Security Bill but I feel that the new clause which is the subject of our debate does not go quite wide enough to make it possible in a single amendment to introduce absolute equality.
The sort of problem that comes to mind immediately is that it does not appear to deal with the question of all the fringe benefits which may well be tacked on to a pension scheme. The most obvious of course is widows' benefit. It does not seem to me that the right hon. Member has taken account of that, although subsequent speakers have no doubt dealt with it.

Mr. Dell: I do not know what the hon. Gentleman is referring to. The new clause deals with the reserve pension scheme. Can he indicate which fringe benefits he is now referring to?

Sir B. Rhys Williams: The new clause deals, as I understand it, with annuities and not with residual benefits after the decease of the beneficiary. This is the particular point I want to mention.
I come now to a much bigger point which I think the House should bear in mind. Where women do not go out to work but make their contribution to society in their own homes they do not receive any pay at all in the sense with which the reserve scheme is concerned. Married women who go out to work are getting especially favourable tax treatment at the moment over a wide earnings band and this is something the right hon. Lady does not take into account in her campaign. I naturally accept, as do all of us on both sides of the House, the principle of equal pay for equal work. This means that we must agree with the idea of equal deferred pay for equal work, but the problems begin where people opt for earlier retirement. Therefore I am sure it would be agreed on all sides of the House that equal deferred pay for equal work ought to assume an equal retirement age. I hope that Amendment No. 91, when we come to it, will take us into that, but we shall learn that at a later stage.
One has to ask whether one wants an absolutely consolidated monolithic benefit or whether it would be reasonable for schemes to separate men and women in respect of the treatment of survivors. I feel that society is not ready and perhaps is not moving in the direction of the idea that men and women should get identical, unisex treatment whether the surviving spouse is a man or a woman. In any event, this might not lead to equality because on the whole women live longer than men so a woman would be more likely to outlive her spouse. Although one could offer them widowers' benefit it would be an empty victory for the women.
Therefore I feel that, interesting as this new clause is, it does not fully solve the problem. We ought to wait to see what the Government have in mind in Amendment No. 91.
I should like to welcome the announcement made, I understand on 2nd May by the Minister of State for Defence, in which we read that for the first time bachelors killed in action will have a lump sum paid into their estate. This means that among men there is the possibility of absolutely equal treatment and equal deferred pay for equal work.
I think it is wrong to confine ourselves to women's claims in this respect. It seems to me that if a widower has lived for many years with a member of his family or with a woman to whom he is not married it is wrong that there should not be entitlement to the same residual benefit for her. Therefore I would like the Secretary of State to consider whether it is not possible, in revising the treatment to be given to men, to ensure that those who die without leaving a widow should have added to their estate a lump sum equivalent in value to the normal value of a widow's benefit.

Dame Joan Vickers: I want to make a remark with regard to my petition yesterday just to draw my right hon. Friend's attention to it, because I brought it before the House after a great deal of consideration. Since presenting the petition yesterday I have had numerous calls and letters saying that women particularly want to have the first two points at any rate considered. I should be grateful to him if he would think about this very seriously in the future.
I cannot see why, now that we are in the Common Market, we cannot follow some of the other Common Market countries. France is far more advanced than we are. They have an equal retirement age of 60. I feel that we should not be tied definitely to this Bill but should be able to reconsider and perhaps amend it in the light of what others are doing so that we can come into line with some of the EEC countries.
In regard to what my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington, South (Sir B. Rhys Williams) said about Service pensions, it is rather interesting to note that in this House women have to contribute towards a possible widow's pension even if they are not married. That seems to me very unfair. Therefore I cannot see why in other schemes women should not in future be able to contribute towards a widow's pension.
I was not in the Standing Committee but I have listened with great interest to the points I had had in mind being put forward. My main object is to draw my right hon. Friend's attention to the large number of people and organisations who are deeply concerned that he should get them equal pensions for equal contributions and are willing to have the same retiring age as between the sexes. This has definitely been thought out, because we have had a conference on it at Church House to which I had invited the right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle). Unfortunately, she could not come, but her hon. Friend took her place. It was attended by over 400 women. I sent a resolution to the Prime Minister on this very subject and I hope that he will take it into consideration.

Sir K. Joseph: I should like to pay tribute to the speeches made in this debate, which has forcused, on the one hand, on the main issue of the treatment of women under this Bill and by this Government, and, on the other, on three separate aspects of cover together under this group of amendments. I shall spend most of my time dealing with the three particular ingredients of this group of amendments, but enough has been said on the general treatment of women by the Government to enable me to say something first on that.
I want to put two perfectly consistent points of view to the House. On the


one hand, judged against a perfect world, the position of women in this country has not been made ideal overnight by this Government. On the other hand, judged against the position of women before this Government came to office, we have a very creditable record. My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mrs. Sally Oppenheim) was absolutely right to point out, in answer to the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) and her hon. Friends some of the things of which we can be modestly proud.
After all, we have introduced an annual review of benefits, whereas the previous Government did not have an annual review. We have provided a pension for the over-80s, which the previous Government refused them. We have added a small addition to the pensions of the over-80s, most of whom are women, which was never introduced by the previous Government. We have made a special provision for younger widows whom the previous Government ignored. We have brought into payment an attendance allowance many of whose beneficiaries are women, and we have made a special age allowance for war widows at 65 which has been widely welcomed by the war pensioners.
As for this Bill, with any shortcomings which inevitably, in the real world, will be present in legislation, it does provide a second pension for all wage earners who are earning more than a quarter of the average national income, when there was no such provision before, and it provides comprehensive cover for widows, whereas before there was no such comprehensive cover.
Those are the credentials which enable the Government to claim, in response to the highly selective speeches of Labour Members, that we have made substantial progress in securing better treatment for women, both in social service policy generally and under this Bill.

Mr. Meacher: Since the right hon. Gentleman has praised the fact that women will now have a second pension, would he tell us, since we could not get this information in Committee from his hon. Friend, how many women will be brought up to the supplementary benefit poverty line as a result? Is his estimate 100,000 or 5 million?

Sir K. Joseph: I hope that, through the successive policies of this Government, which include annual improvements in social security benefits and the tax credit scheme, as well as an increase in selective benefits, and the reserve scheme and occupational pensions, relatively soon, dramatically fewer women will be retiring in poverty. After all, the tax credit scheme, which has not yet been adopted as Government policy, would in itself—[Interruption.] I do not want to stray too far on this subject, but the hon. Gentleman asked me a question which, as he well knows, cannot be answered by reference to this Bill alone.
I turn to the three main ingredients of this group of amendments. The first was put, as persuasively as ever, by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell), supported by his hon. Friends the Members for Islington, South-West (Mr. George Cunningham) and Rhondda, West (Mr. Alec Jones), and to some extent by many of my hon. Friends, including my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) who introduced a petition on part of the same theme yesterday, and my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Mrs. Kellet-Bowman).
It is common ground that the main difference between the accrual rates of pensions for women and those for men flow from the three factors that we all recognise—the earlier retirement of women, the longer life of women and the fact that the man's contribution has to bear the cost of widowhood cover. The right hon. Gentleman introduced new Clause 1, with Amendment No. 131, as the method of eliminating the effect of the first and most important of these differentials, the earlier retirement.
Considering the progress of the discussions in Committee, we all now see it as a thoroughly sensible step forward that some provision should be made to eliminate, at a woman's own wish, the disadvantage that comes to her through the calculation of her pension on the assumption that she retires at 60 in the reserve scheme. That has now become common ground. It emerged from the debates and the views of hon. Members on both sides of the Committee, and the right hon. Gentleman has put forward his method of dealing with it.
The Government have tabled Amendments Nos. 61 and 91, which—the former for the occupational pension recognition test and the latter for the reserve scheme —provide that a woman may defer her retirement from 60 up to a maximum of 65 and thus can, to any degree she wishes as between those ages, eliminate the disadvantage of the earlier retirement calculation.
The result has been to achieve what both sides of the House wish—namely, that, if a woman decides to defer her retirement to 65 under the reserve scheme, her accrual rate becomes very nearly the same as a man's. I say "very nearly the same"—I am sorry to disappoint my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Norman Lamont)— because we shall make regulations, if the House approves the amendment, in due course, and there will be calculations, to be made of the exact effects of the various factors. But, broadly speaking, a woman who decided to defer her retirement to 65 would achieve the same accrual rate as a man.
Misunderstanding of what the Government propose under Amendments Nos. 61 and 91 is not in the least surprising, because the Government have not had, until this Report stage, the opportunity to explain these amendments, which have only just been tabled. The hon. Member for Oldham, West, I think, quoted the Women's National Commission. I think that he said that it was its view that, even if Amendment No. 91 were passed, a woman's accrual rate would be 30 per cent. less good than a man's. If I have misunderstood the hon. Member or the commission, I apologise, but if that is their view, it is a misunderstanding. The accrual rate under Amendment No. 91 will be more or less the same as for a man.

Mr. O'Malley: Since I believe that probably large numbers of firms have compulsory retirement for women at the age of 60, is the right hon. Gentleman envisaging the possibility or the desirability of legislation which would allow them to continue working after 60? Second, would he bear in mind that, at a time of high unemployment, when the whole tone of the debate in the country is in favour of reducing the retirement age for women, many will see as a retro-

grade step any provision which had as its final effect an increase in the working age of women rather than a reduction?

Sir K. Joseph: The hon. Member is seldom perverse, but that is what he is being now. First of all, mercifully, the unemployment rate is falling. But on the general issue, hon. Members on both sides are pressing the Government to allow women to defer retirement if they wish. The hon. Member has a substantial point on compulsory retirement ages, and he asks whether the Government contemplate legislation. The answer is "No", but if a number of women in any employment want to defer retirement, no doubt they will make their views known to the management directly or through their trade unions.

Mr. Dell: Can I be clear what the right hon. Gentleman is saying? Is he saying. in effect, that, by regulation, he will revise Schedule 18 so that, for ages of retirement for women from 60 to 65 there will be different accrual rates per reckon able contribution factor for all the ages between 60 and 65, and that these will be nearly comparable—"nearly" being the longevity factor—to the figures given in the column for men retiring at the age of 65? If he is saying that, then I put it to him that the sensible thing is to do it both ways, to do it for men who retire earlier as well as for women. But if he is not saying that, I do not think he is meeting the point of new Clause 1. He has made me hopeful, but if he has not met that point then he should look at new Clause 1 again in the light of what he is saying.

6.15 p.m.

Sir K. Joseph: I am saying that, as regards the first, long part of the right hon. Gentleman's necessarily long sentence, but I have these reservations. He was particularly talking about the close approximation of the accrual rate of a woman if she deferred retirement at the age of 65 and that of a man who retired at 65. I assert that the woman's accrual rate will be greater from that at 60 to that at 65 progressively as she defers retirement, year by year, between 60 and 65. I did not say that as between 60 and 65 there will be any close approximation between a man's and a woman's accrual rate. I was not referring to earlier retirement by the man.
The right hon. Gentleman put in his new Clause 1 that there should be a single table in Schedule 18 but he did not write in amendments to other parts of the Bill to provide for earlier retirement by men. Therefore, since for the purpose of the amendment hon. Members on both sides have focused on later retirement by women, the Government have concentrated on that, and our answer lies in Amendments Nos. 61 and 91. I feel that hon. Members on both sides ought to welcome, by our joint efforts, a sensible step forward.
I turn to the second ingredient in this group of amendments connected with Amendment No. 53 which the right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn put with her usual forcefulness and in which, to my slight dismay, she received support from my hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. Stewart-Smith). I was comforted by the sturdy counter action by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames and by the very shrewd intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Boscawen)— because we are not here dealing with something like pay. It was notable enough —and I am not underestimating it—for a Government to legislate in favour of equal pay, but here, in occupational pension schemes, as my hon. Friends the Members for Wells and Kingston-upon-Thames have emphasised, we are dealing with an option in the employer's hands. Both sides, I am sure, want employers to provide good occupational pension schemes. Here we are providing that if they do not provide recognised occupational pension schemes, their workers, within the terms of the Bill, will have to be put into the reserve scheme. We cannot insist too strongly on any particular condition being imposed in the recognition test without taking the risk that we shall harm the very people we want to help, by diminishing the number of recognised occupational pension schemes. That is a fact of life.
I believe that it was the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) who quoted figures to show how the relatively very small proportion of working women in occupational pension schemes is a token of discrimination against women, but I must point out that it is no more a token of discrimination than

the relatively small proportion of manual workers who are in occupational pension schemes is a sign of discrimination against manual men. [Interruption.] On second thoughts, I could have put that proposition better. But if there is discrimination against women, it is not because they are women but because, as with manual workers, there has not been pressure in the employer's own mind or, to be fair, from the workers themselves through their trade unions, for occupational pension schemes to encompass the majority, as we would wish, if not all manual workers, including women.
We have to face the fact that if we build in a condition that occupational pension schemes shall provide equally for women, we may do damage to the very people we are out to help by discouraging the employer who has a marginal state of mind about recognised occupational pension schemes from going ahead. I can assure hon. Members on both sides of the House that so far as the Government have an opportunity to set an example and to encourage, of course we want women to be in recognised occupational pension schemes. We only ask the House to recognise that to legislate for it will probably be counter-productive.
I turn last to Amendment No. 152, of the right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn, on which she spoke valiantly in favour of a statutory obligation on the Government to provide that one-third of the members of the Occupational Pensions Board and Reserve Pension Board should be women. I will tease her about her apparent lack of confidence in women's own excellence securing their membership, but of course appointments to these bodies must be on merits. Surely, women do not want reserved places on every board or body. They will expect to earn them by their own merits. I hope, therefore, that the House will not follow that particular call.
Finally, I hope that in the light of the answers I have given to the debate, which contained some notable speeches from both sides of the House, the amendments will not be pressed. If they are pressed, I hope that in the light of my answers, and of Amendments No. 61 and 91 which the Government have tabled, my hon and right hon. Friends will vote against them.

Mr. O'Malley: The Secretary of State expresses himself as being satisfied with the changes affecting women which the Government are bringing forward on Report. I begin by saying that if he is satisfied we certainly are not—and we believe that many women outside the House will remain dissatisfied, too. The Secretary of State began by saying the Government had a creditable record in their dealings with women and in their legislation affecting women since they came into office in 1970. I have to tell him that as a result of the omissions of this Government and the vast changes in this Bill when compared with the 1969 Superannuation Bill, when this Bill has been passed women will still be in a position very much inferior to that in which they would have been had that 1969 Bill been completed before the General Election of 1970.
I say that for two reasons. What that Bill did, and what the right hon. Gentleman and hon. Members opposite are now saying is impossible to do at this stage, was to give, in terms of pension provision, equal treatment for women in every respect. That is the purpose of the amendments which we are now discussing. It is a purpose which has not been achieved by this Government in the last two-and-a-half years, and it is certainly not achieved as a result of the proposals which we are now considering.
It also needs to be noticed that when the Secretary of State makes claims such as this—and I bear in mind particularly the speech of the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Norman Lamont) about widowhood provision— the 1969 proposals gave a widow 100 per cent. of her husband's pension entitlement, and it was the best pension scheme deal for women anywhere in the world. It also included crediting forward, which the Government's proposals do not. Therefore, the 50 per cent. proposals of this Government in terms of widowhood are not even as good as those put forward in legislation which completed its Committee stage before the 1970 General Election.
Even with the revision of the accrual rates, which the right hon. Gentleman has discussed briefly and which we shall want to question him further about when we reach Amendments Nos. 61 and 91,

women in their millions far into the future will be retiring on pensions which are so small, as a result of the provisions in the Bill—both in the occupational pension sphere and through the reserve scheme—that they will still have to depend upon means-tested supplementary benefits.
The right hon. Gentleman says that we are now giving women virtually equal accrual rates—but that applies if they are prepared to work to the age of 65. Many women will not be allowed by their firms to work until 65, and what a reflection it is on our social security legislation in 1973, when, in order to achieve some kind of paper parity, we are discussing some kind of arrangement which satisfies the Government and the Secretary of State, we have to devise a formula which provides that the only way of getting that equal accrual is for women to work until the age of 65 instead of the pensionable age of 60, as defined in all our post-war legislation.
Therefore, on that part of the Secretary of State's remarks I conclude by saying that of course there has been some improvement by the Government, through Amendment No. 91. That came only as a result of strong pressure from my right hon. Friend the Member for Birken-head (Mr. Dell) and other members of the Committee. That change having been made, it should be compared once again not with the future policy proposals of the Opposition but with the proposals which almost completed their legislative process before the General Election in 1970 where a woman could retire at 60 and there was no need for her to work until 65. Under the national superannuation proposals a woman at 60 would have received complete equality of treatment with men, taking into account her pensionable age. As a party we had already gone much further than the Government are prepared to go this afternoon and it is for those reasons that we can say on general grounds that we are dissatisfied with their general policy propositions and that we certainly intend to press some of these amendments to a Division this evening.
It also needs to be said in regard to Amendment No. 53, on which my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) spoke, that the failure of the Government, both in Committee and


this afternoon, to provide safeguards against discrimination between men and women in employers' pension schemes is in clear breach of the statement made by the now Home Secretary when he was in Opposition. My right hon. Friend quoted the Home Secretary's remarks when she spoke in Committee in columns 883 and 884. The amendment gives women not equal rights to men in occupational pension schemes but merely equal rights to membership. I hope that there will be enough support on both sides of the House at least to give them that basic entitlement.
Even the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mrs. Sally Oppenheim)—I am not attacking her for it—made a party political speech. She said she was broadly —[Interruption.] The difference between my speech and that of the hon. Lady is that I took the trouble to deal with the facts before making it and she did not. Even she said that she supported the principle behind Amendment No. 53. I hope that there can be a stretching out of hands between the back benches on both sides at least to give women this minimal entitlement and the right to belong to a scheme, and not to have discrimination against them merely because they are women.
We are discussing the broad question of discrimination against women in pension provisions against the background of strong public support for such equality of treatment. If the House today rejects the appeals for an end to discrimination against women in this sphere it will be ignoring all the forces of social change which are a feature of life in this country. It will be standing in the path of inevitable historical forces and I hope that the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames recognises the existence of these historical forces when he says that he does not believe that this structure can last very long.
6.30 p.m.
He knows, as we all do in our hearts —on whatever side of the House we sit —that inevitably, in spite of the actuarial arguments, the arguments of clerks, mathematicians and economists, women will win this battle for equal treatment in pensions and in other provision. We are therefore discussing only one aspect of a major historical problem. In our

fight to secure equality of treatment for women in pension provision we have been supported by virtually every women's organisation in the country. The National Council of Women of Great Britain has said
We strongly deprecate that in Clause 74(2) the personal pension for a woman earner is 30% less than for a man.
Women in their millions continue to retire at 60, as many will have to, and not only because of the policies of their employers but also because of their health —and I speak particularly of women who are doing manual jobs. That situation will continue unabated under the Bill in spite of Amendment No. 91.
So we have the support of that organisation, and of Age Concern and Help the Aged. I received only the other day a letter from the Anti-Discrimination Law Campaign strongly supporting us in this attempt to secure equality of treatment for women. I understand that that campaign is to present at some time in the future a national petition for the anti-discrimination Bill which will be presented to Parliament by my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Mr. Raphael Tuck). As the House knows, he is assiduous in advancing the interests of his constituents and the interests of women of this country.
When we discuss the pension contribution for women we should remember that they represent about 38 per cent. of the labour force. It is no longer the position, as it was in the 1930s, that only a small fraction of the labour force was female. The income which these women receive is not merely used to satisfy the personal spending requirements of those women. They do not work for pin money. In many households their income is essential to meet bills, to pay the mortgage, to run the car and to maintain the family at a reasonable standard of living. At the moment, with a labour force of about 38 per cent. women, those women receive wages and salaries which, on average, are very much below that of men. When they retire the disparity of treatment continues. Of course, even when the Equal Pay Act becomes fully operative it seems likely— for reasons which lie beyond the bounds of our discussion this afternoon—that large numbers of women will still be receiving incomes substantially lower than those received by the male section of the population.
If the pensions payable under the reserve and the occupational schemes are to operate at the minimum level of criteria set into the Bill, they are low enough. We start with a system which has a pitifully small total level of provision. That applies to men, but for women it is a great deal worse.
In Committee we examined in detail and quoted many figures to indicate how low the pension provision would be for women, far into the future. The Bill will provide low pensions, and even lower pensions for women.
The hon. Member for Lancaster (Mrs. Kellett-Bowman) thought that this was a sound Bill, but its benefits for women are even worse than those in the Boyd-Carpenter scheme.
One may judge to what extent the provisions in occupational schemes leave a woman in an inferior position. For example, using the formula the Government adopted with the final salary-type scheme, whereas after 40 years a man could draw 24 per cent. final salary pension, a woman, after 40 years, could draw only a 16·8 per cent. pension. In the reserve scheme the position could arise in which if a man and woman entered at a similar age—say 22—the man would get 19 per cent. and the woman would get 13 per cent. When one considers the position of the woman who is 40 when the scheme comes into operation—if it does —paying into the reserve scheme for 20 years would give her a pension of 6 per cent. A woman of 50 would get 3 per cent. The position was outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher), when he said that as a result of the level of pension provision for women many women have had to rely on National Assistance—or supplementary benefits, as is now the case. That situation will continue far into the future.
I was disappointed that the Secretary of State did not refer specifically to Amendments Nos. 173 and 174. Those amendments sought to make similar provision for women and men in the case of women who wished to provide for dependants in the event of the death of those women. There is a higher accrual requirement for men making that kind of provision in certain types of schemes, and I thought that the Secretary of State could have met us on that point.
Despite Amendment No. 91, fundamentally nothing has changed. The Government have taken a great deal of trouble this afternoon, and the Secretary of State has obviously thought carefully how he should marshall and present his facts to make the situation look more tolerable than it is, but the situation remains intolerable. The Bill still does not provide that basic equality of treatment to women which we were providing in the 1969 legislation. The Government argument is poverty-stricken. For how much longer shall we be dominated by the arguments of clerks and actuaries on questions of morality and equity.
All that the Government have been able to say, including the pathetic letter that the Under-Secretary wrote to The Times in reply to the one from my hon. Friends and myself, is that in Committee we had the usual needle time speech, in which the Under-Secretary gave us an account, similar to the one given by the Secretary of State this afternoon, and said that women live longer than men. Do not they need the same warmth, clothing, food and consideration as men? Is it their fault that they live longer than men? We do not say that because non-manual workers live longer than manual workers or because one section of the male population has a greater life expectancy than another section they should receive inferior treatment in pension provision. That is not a feature of the National Insurance scheme or of any decent occupational pension scheme.
I do not think that we can continue reputably to use that argument in this House, and it is not a factor that should be taken into account in assessing the needs of women when there is so much evidence of mass poverty, especially amongst older women, which will continue unless additional measures are taken in this Bill.
The second argument which has been adduced is that it would cost additional money to accept my right hon. Friend's proposals. As my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West said, the figures which the Under-Secretary gave in Committee were not accurate and did not properly answer the queries which had been put to him.
I see nothing intrinsically wrong in a system of cross-subsidy in a scheme,


especially in a major State scheme such as the reserve scheme. It is an essential feature of the basic scheme. I believe it is right that there should be a cross-subsidy between the generations and, contrary to the view of the Under-Secretary, which betrays the Tory philosophy behind it, that there is a great deal of community of interest between members of the reserve scheme. The community of interest is that they are members of a community, and there is a responsibility one to the other and one generation to the other, especially the young generation towards the older one. It is a terrible condemnation of the reserve proposals of this Government that they are not prepared to accept and to tell the country that there should be a bond of interest between one section of the community and the other—the older and the younger.
I listened carefully to what my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead said. In view of Amendment No. 91 especially, it is important that new Clause 1 or Amendment No. 131 should be accepted. If my right hon. Friend wishes to divide the House on the clause I shall be pleased to recommend to my right hon. and hon. Friends that we support him. I also support my right hon. Friend because, as he said, he is a reasonable man always seeking compromise, and I am always prepared to go along with him because I know that any compromises he offers will be so sensible that no Conservative Government will be prepared to accept them.
On that basis, I suggest to my right hon. and hon. Friends that we support new Clause 1, assuming that my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell) wishes to press it to a Division. As for the other amendments, Nos. 155 and 156 seek to give real equality to women in both the occupational pension and the reserve schemes. The Government's refusal to accept them will reflect their failure to consider changing social conditions and attitudes.
I believe that not only in the future but at present right hon. and hon. Gentlemen on the Government side will be condemned for their attitude to these amendments. As a result of that attitude, women will be forced into poverty for

many years to come. However, we hope that the pressures coming from the community will be such that before too long the Government's attitude, and all the machinery that they are setting up, will be overwhelmed and replaced with a system providing the kind of equality to women which is only fair for any Government to provide in 1973.
Therefore, I suggest that in addition to supporting new Clause 1 we also support—and I hope gain support from the Government backbenchers for—Amendments Nos. 53 and 56, dealing with the basic issue that the Government have dodged and neglected for so long-equality of treatment for women.

6.45 p.m.

Mr. Dell: It is my intention to press new Clause 1 to a Division, and I shall explain why.
When the Secretary of State drafts his regulations giving these different rates of accrual for women retiring at different ages between 60 and 65, he will realise how absurd it is still to make a difference between men and women, and he will be forced to ask himself why he cannot just have "unisex" tables, since they would be so very little different. The whole operation is absurd. It would be better if men could also retire earlier if it corresponded with the retirement ages in their occupational schemes.
The Secretary of State said that 1 did not move the necessary consequential amendments in the rest of the Bill. He cannot expect me to write his Bill for him. He could have accepted the principle of the new clause and then tabled the necessary amendments. That would have enabled us to get out of the nonsense which he has gone some way to eliminate. However, he will make the anomaly look even worse because of his unwillingness to accept the principle of the clause.
What I was proposing and what he now intends to do will create an enormous incentive for women to work longer, because the whole tables will have to be rewritten and the additional reserve pension which will go to them as a result of deferring their age of retirement two or three years will be considerable. When the Government do that they will be asked why there is not a comparable rate of


accrual within the basic pension scheme, and pressure will begin on that front, too.
Although the right hon. Gentleman has come some way, he still leaves an absurd anomaly. Because of that, I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends will join

me in dividing the House in favour of new Clause 1.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—

The House divided: Ayes 196, Noes 208.

Division No. 122.]
AYES
[6.48 p.m.


Abse, Leo
Galpern, Sir Myer
O'Malley, Brian


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Gourlay, Harry
Orbach, Maurice


Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)
Grant, George (Morpeth)
Orme, Stanley


Armstrong, Ernest
Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)
Oswald, Thomas


Ashton, Joe
Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.
Palmer, Arthur


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles


Barnett, Joel (Heywood and Roylon)
Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)
Pardoe, John


Baxter, William
Hardy, Peter
Parker, John (Dagenham)


Beaney, Alan
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)


Bidwell, Sydney
Hattersley, Roy
Pavitt, Laurie


Bishop, E. S.
Heffer, Eric S.
Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Perry, Ernest G.


Boardman, H. (Leigh)
Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg.


Booth, Albert
Hughes, Mark (Durham)
Prescott, John


Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)
Probert, Arthur


Bradley, Tom
Hunter, Adam
Radice, Giles


Broughton, Sir Alfred
Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)
Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)


Brown, Robert C. (N'c'tle-u-Tyne,W.)
Jenkins. Hugh (Putney)
Rhodes, Geoffrey


Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)
John, Brynmor
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Brown, Ronald(Shoreditch &amp; F'bury)
Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)
Roberts, Rt.Hn.Goronwy(Caernarvon)


Buchan, Norman
Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)
Robertson, John (Paisley)


Buchanan, Richard (G'gow Sp-burn)
Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)
Roderick, Caerwyn E.(Brc'n&amp;R'dnor)


Camnbell, I (Dunbartonshire, W.)
Jones Rt.Hn.SIr Elwyn (W.Ham.S.)
Rose, Paul B.


Cant, R. B.
Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)
Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)


Carmichael, Neil
Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.)
Rowlands, Ted


Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)
Judd, Frank
Sandelson, Neville


Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara
Kaufman, Gerald
Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lune)


Clark, David (Colne Valley)
Kelley, Richard
Short, Rt. Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)


Cohen, Stanley
Kinnock, Neil
Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)


Concannon, J. D.
 Lamborn, Harry
Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)


Conlan Bernard
Lamond, James
Sillars, James


Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Lawson, George
Silverman, Julius


Crawshaw Richard
Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Skinner, Dennis


Cronin, John
Leonard, Dick
Small, William


Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Lestor, Miss Joan
Spearing, Nigel


Cunningham, G. (Islington, S.W.)
Lipton, Marcus
Spriggs, Leslie


Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whitehaven)
Lomas, Kenneth
Stallard, A. W.



Loughlin, Charles
Steel, David


Dalyell, Tam
Lyon, Alexander W. (York)
Strang, Gavin


Davidson, Arthur
Luons, Edward (Bradford, E.)
Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.


Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley


Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)
McBride, Neil
Thomas.Rt.Hn.George (Cardiff.W.)


Delargy, Hugh
McElhone, Frank
Tinn, James


Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund
McGuire, Michael
Tomney, Frank


Doig, Peter
Machin, George
Tope, Graham


Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)
Mackie, John
Torney, Tom


Driberg, Tom
Mackintosh, John P.
Tuck, Raphael



McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)
Urwin, T.W.


Duffy, A. E. P.
McNamara, J. Kevin
Varley, Eric G.


Dunn James A.
Mahon, Simon (Bootle)
Wainwright, Edwin


Dunnett, Jack
Marks, Kenneth
Wallace, George


Eadie, Alex
Marsden, F.
Watklns, David


Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
Marshall, Dr. Edmund
Weitzman David


Edwards, William (Merioneth)
Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy
Wellbeloved, James


Ellis, Tom
Meacher, Michael
White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)


English, Michael
Mendelson, John
Whitehead, Phillip


Ewing, Harry
Mikardo, Ian
Whitlock, William


Faulds, Andrew
Millan, Bruce
Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)


Fernyhough, Rt. Hn. E.
Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen)
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


Fitch, Alan (Wigan)
Molloy, William
Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)


Fitt, Gerard (Belfast, W.)
Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)
Wilson, William (Coventry, S)


Fletcher, Raymond (Iikeston)
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Woof, Robert


Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Moyle, Roland



Foot, Michael
Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Ford, Ben
Oakes, Gordon
Mr. Donald Coleman and


Forrester, John
Ogden, Eric
Mr. Joseph Harper.


Freeson, Reginald
O'Halloran, Michael





NOES


Adley, Robert
Gryils, Michael
Parkinson, Cecil


Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)
Glimmer, J. Selwyn
Percival, Ian


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Gurden, Harold
Pike, Miss Mervyn


Atkins, Humphrey
Hall, John (Wycombe)
Pink, R. Bonner


Awdry, Daniel
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch


Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)
Hannam, John (Exeter)
Price, David (Eastleigh)


Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)
Haselhurst, Alan
Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.


Balniel, Rt. Hn. Lord
Hastings, Stephen
Proudfoot, Wilfred


Batsford, Brian
Havers, Michael
Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis


Bell, Ronald
Hayhoe, Barney
Raison, Timothy


Benyon, W.
Hiley, Joseph
Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James


Berry, Hn. Anthony
Holland, Philip
Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter


Biffen, John
Holt, Miss Mary
Redmond, Robert


Biggs-Davison, John
Hordern, Peter
Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)


Blaker, Peter
Hornby, Richard
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)
Hornsby-Smith.Rt.Hn.Dame Patricia
Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David


Body, Richard
Howe, Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Reigate)
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon


Boscawen, Hn. Robert
Howell, David (Guildford)
Ridley, Hn. Nicholas


Bossom, Sir Clive
Hunt, John
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)


Bowden, Andrew
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Roberts, Wyn (Conway)


Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Rost, Peter


Bruce-Gardyne, J.
James, David
Royle, Anthony


Bryan, Sir Paul
Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)
Russell, Sir Ronald


Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N&amp;M)
Jopling, Michael
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh &amp; Whitby)


Buck, Anthony
Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith
Simeons, Charles


Burden, F.A.
Kaberry, Sir Donald
Sinclair, Sir George


Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
Keilett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine
Skeet, T. H. H.


Campbell, Rt. Hn. G. (Moray &amp; Nairn)
Kershaw, Anthony
Smith, Dudley (W'wick &amp; L'mington


Carlisle, Mark




Carr. Rt. Hn. Robert
Kimball, Marcus
Soref, Harold


Cary, Sir Robert
King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Speed, Keith


Chapman Sydney
Kinsey, J. R.
Spence, John


Chichester-Clark, R.
Knox, David
Sproat, lain


Clark William (Surrey E)
Lamont, Norman
Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh, W.)


Clarke Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Lane, David
Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.


Cockeram Eric
Langford-Holt, Sir John
Sutcliffe, John


Cooks Robert
Le Marchant, Spencer
Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)


Coombs, Derek
Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)
Taylor, Edward M.(G'gow,Cathcart)


Cooper, A. E.
Longden, Sir Gilbert
Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)


Cormack, Patrick
Loveridge, John
Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N.W.)


Costain, A. P.
Luce, R. N.
Tebbit, Norman


Critchle'y Julian
McAdden, Sir Stephen
Temple, John M.


Crowder, F. P.
MacArthur, lan
Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret


d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry
McLaren, Martin
Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)


d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Maj. -Gen Jack
Macmillan, Rt.Hn.Maurice (Farnham)
Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.)


Dean, Paul
McNair-Wilson, Michael
Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)


Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.
McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)
Tilney, John


Digby, Simon Wingfield
Madel, David
Trafford, Dr. Anthony


Dixon, Piers
Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest
Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin


Drayson, G. B.
Mather, Carol
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Dykes, Hugh
Maude, Angus
Waddington, David


Edwards Nicholas (Pembroke)
Mawby, Ray
Walder, David (Clilheroe)


Eillott, R.W. (N'c'tle-upon-tyne, N.)
Meyer, Sir Anthony
Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester)


Eyre, Reginald
Miscampbell, Norman
wall, Patrick


Fell, Anthony
Mitchell,Lt.-Col.C.(Aberdeenshire,W)
ward, Dame Irene



Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Warren, Kenneth


Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)
Molyneaux, James
weatherill, Bernard


Fookes, Miss Janet
Monks, Mrs. Connie
Wells, John (Maldstone)


Fortescue, Tim
Monro, Hector
White, Roger (Gravesend)


Foster, Sir John
Montgomery, Fergus
Wiggin, Jerry


Fowler, Norman
More, Jasper
Wilkinson, John


Fraser,Rt.Hn.Hugh(St'fford&amp; Stone)
Morrison, Charles
Winterton, Nicholas


Fry, Peter
Mudd, David
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Gibson-Watt, David
Murton, Oscar
Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher


Glyn, Dr. Alan
Nabarro, Sir Gerald
Woodnutt, Mark


Goodhew, Victor
Neave, Airey
Worsley, Marcus


Gower, Raymond
Nicholit, Sir Harmar
Younger Hn. George


Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)
Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally



Gray, Hamish
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Green, Alan
Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)
Mr. Marcus Fox and


Grieve, Percy
Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)
Mr. Paul Hawkins


Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)
Paisley, Rev lan

Question accordingly negatived.

New Clause 2

QUALIFICATIONS OF FEDERATED SUPERANNUATION SYSTEM FOR UNIVERSITIES

Notwithstanding anything contained in Sections 51 to 58 of this Act the Federated Superannuation System for Universities shall nevertheless qualify as a recognised occupational scheme for the purposes of this Act for a period of five years after the coming into operation of the Act.—[Mr. Marks.

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Kenneth Marks: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I moved a similar clause in Committee, and at that time negotiations were taking place between the Department and the university teachers. I learned today from the Under-Secretary that there has been a satisfactory conclusion to those discussions and that the alternative proposals put forward by the teachers have been regarded as acceptable by the Minister.
I make two points. In his letter, the Under-Secretary does not say whether the universities, which are the institutions which will have to make certain decisions on this matter, have been consulted, and whether they have given a reply.
The other question is whether any amendment to the Bill is needed, other than by means of the regulations which will be made.

7.0 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Social Services (Mr. Paul Dean): As the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell) said, this question was discussed in Committee. I said then that discussions were taking place with the Association of University Teachers to try to find an acceptable way of enabling the FSSU scheme to come within the term for recognition. There has not been any argument that that scheme is anything but a good scheme, but because of its structure it does not fit within the arrangements proposed in the Bill. The main reason for that is that the benefits may be paid wholly in lump sum form and there is no requirement for a personal pension or a widow's pension.
I have seen the association myself and discussions have continued with officials. Following those discussions the AUT suggested that instead of amending the FSSU

scheme rules, participating institutions, which are largely individual universities, should give a combined undertaking to ensure that minimum payments are payable to those retiring and those dying in service between 1975 and 1980.
We have been very willing to consider this alternative and have now told the AUT that there is power under the Bill as at present drafted to make regulations enabling the Occupational Pensions Board to accept such a method of achieving recognition. As with all the other schemes, the question whether recognition should be given is for the board.
There can be no question of exempting the FSSU scheme completely from the provisions of the Bill even for a limited period. The proposals put to us by the AUT seem to point to a satisfactory solution, and it is reasonable to hope that a generally acceptable way of achieving recognition has been found. The AUT has indicated that it is satisfied with the outcome of its discussions with Ministers and officials. I understand that the proposals are likely to be acceptable to the universities, but that is of course a matter for them.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks) for raising this question again and for the cooperation we have had from the other people concerned. I am glad to tell the House that we appear to have reached a solution which I think will be satisfactory for recognition purposes and also to the FSSU scheme which is a good occupational pension scheme.

Mr. Marks: I am grateful to the Under-Secretary of State for the consideration he has given to this matter and for the action he has taken. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 3

OCCUPATIONAL PENSION SCHEME

When the Occupational Pensions Board has exercised its powers under section 50(1) of this Act to reject an application for recognition or to withdraw a recognition certificate in respect of an Occupational Pension Scheme, it shall not be permissible to make membership of that scheme a condition of employment.—[Mr. Dell.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Dell: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): It will be convenient to take also new Clause 4:

Conditions of membership of occupational pension scheme

(1) On the exercise of their powers under Section 50(1) of this Act to reject an application for, or cancel a recognition certificate, the Occupational Pensions Board shall issue a determination stating whether the scheme shall be permitted to make membership a condition of employment.
(2) On an application made to them in respect of an unrecognised occupational pension scheme by persons competent to make such an application in respect of it, the Occupational Pensions Board shall issue a determination as to whether or not the scheme shall be permitted to make scheme membership a condition of employment.
(3) For the purposes of paragraph (2) above, "persons competent" shall be as defined in Section 61(5) of this Act.

Mr. Dell: I need not take long on this clause because the Government must this time accept its principle. The question is whether, as a condition of employment, a person should be compelled to be a member of an unrecognised occupational pension scheme. It would be absurd for a person to be thus compelled, because it would mean that he would have to contribute towards the basic pension, the reserve pension scheme, and also the unrecognised occupational pension scheme.
The basic contribution of a young married man with children would be 5·25 per cent. of his salary, his reserve pension contribution would be 1·5 per cent. of his salary, and his contribution to the unrecognised scheme might be 2·5 per cent. of his salary, or perhaps more. This young man would therefore be paying out of his salary, which might be a low one, a minimum of 9·25 per cent., and perhaps more.
In Committee I argued that it should not be a condition of employment that a person should be compelled to be a member of an unrecognised occupational pension scheme. I thought it must be an error of omission that the Government had failed to provide for this, but, no, the Under-Secretary of State said that he would not have this minor change made in the Bill. He said that
it should not be assumed that benefits available in an unrecognised scheme must necessarily duplicate or overlap those provided by the reserve pension scheme."—[OFFICIAL

REPORT, Standing Committee E, 8th March 1973; c. 867.]
I assume that he was referring to schemes which provided for a lump sum payment on retirement which would not get recognition under the Bill. I was not assuming that the benefits available under an unrecognised scheme necessarily duplicated those available under the reserve pension scheme. All I asked was that it should not be a condition of employment that a person should be a member of such a scheme, but the Government would not accept my amendment.
As is my usual practice, I offer the Government a compromise position. If my clause is unacceptable because it represents an absolute prohibition, let us try new Clause 4, under which the Occupational Pensions Board would decide whether that should be a condition of employment. The board could decide either when it considers the scheme on an application for recognition or when an application on that point is made to it by competent persons. That would not be a grave additional burden on the board, because it will have to look at most of these schemes anyway.
The hon. Member for Kensington, South (Sir B. Rhys Williams), who unfortunately is not in his place, supported this idea strongly in Committee. If I have not influenced the Government perhaps the representations, public and private, that I hope he has made, will do so. It is a relatively small point, but employees are entitled to better protection than they are given in the Bill and I hope that the Minister will accept one of the new clauses, or at any rate the principle of one of them with a view to changing the Bill later.

Mr. Dean: As the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell) said, he is following his normal tactics. Having put forward a proposition which was not acceptable in Committee he is offering, on the Floor of the House, what he calls a compromise. The Government understand the point he has in mind. I hope I shall say something that he will feel is conciliatory and helpful on the principle that underlies new Clause 4.
First, I will say a word on new Clause 3. Some hon. Members argued in Committee—the right hon. Gentleman did not


quite use this argument this afternoon— that employees should be protected against being forced to join what might be called rogue schemes and being compelled to pay additional contributions that they could not afford. Unrecognised schemes may not necessarily be rogue schemes. Some may provide lump sum benefits which are not satisfactory for recognition purposes although they may be perfectly secure and respectable schemes which fulfil a valuable function for employees. Anything I say in sympathy with the right hon. Gentleman's argument does not necessarily mean that I regard unrecognised schemes as bad schemes. They may be fulfilling a purpose which would not be fulfilled otherwise, and for that reason I do not condemn them.
Another difficulty with new Clause 3 is that in a Bill of this kind we do not want to interfere in matters which largely concern conditions of employment which are best left to free negotiation and discussion between employers and employees.
For these reasons the Government do not feel that new Clause 3 is satisfactory. It would impose a complete ban on compulsory membership where recognition has been refused or withdrawn although the scheme concerned is sound and such a condition had been agreed by employees' representatives. Moreover, it would be ineffective because it would not extend to all unrecognised schemes, and only a few changes would therefore be necessary in a scheme which had been refused recognition, for the employer to present it as an entirely new scheme in respect of which recognition had not been sought.
New Clause 4 is a different matter, because it permits the circumstances of each scheme to be examined before a decision is reached on whether or not membership may be made a condition of employment. There would, however, be difficulty in imposing such an additional duty on the Occupational Pensions Board at this stage. I think the House will agree that the board, which at present is in existence only in shadow form and will not have full statutory powers until the Bill receives Royal Assent and appointments have been made, will have a massive amount of work to do between now and 1975 because of the large num-

ber of schemes which will require authoritative decisions from the board.
Therefore, I hope the House will feel that it would be only right and proper that the board should be able to concentrate all its efforts on recognition provisions and reservation requirements. We would be reluctant to put this additional work on the board at this moment. However, while we do not feel able to accept the new clause for this reason, I am prepared to give an undertaking to keep the situation, and the particular point mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman, carefully under review. If cases occur where employees are compelled against their will to join schemes in which their contributions are at risk. I would be prepared to ask the board, when it has completed its initial task to which I have referred, to examine ways of preventing this. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will feel that in the circumstances we have been able to go some way to meet the principle behind new Clause 4, which aims to extend the policing activities of the Occupational Pensions Board when the initial rush of its work has been completed.

Mr. Dell: Surely there would be some need to have some power in the Bill to enable the board to do this effectively? There should be at least a regulation-making power to enable the Government to give the necessary powers to the board. On what authority would the board be able to do this as the Bill stands?

Mr. Dean: Wide powers are given to the board already and there will be the possibility of the Government of the day seeking advice from it. I am advised that the undertaking I have just given to the right hon. Gentleman is adequately covered under the Bill as it stands.

Mr. George Cunningham: The Undersecretary used some such words a moment ago as "if the contributors' contributions are at risk". What did he mean by that? There may be a common situation in which one wants to prohibit making membership of a scheme compulsory, not where the contributions are believed to be at risk but simply where the benefits almost duplicate those which will be acquired under the State reserve scheme, when the employee will have to be a member of that scheme.

Mr. Dean: The hon. Member for Islington, South-West (Mr. George


Cunningham) is going much wider than his right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead went. If evidence is building up that people are compelled to join a scheme which is not satisfactory and where the contributions they make may be at risk, there would be a case for the Occupational Pensions Board to examine, to see whether the conditions of employment laid down were appropriate in those circumstances. I should not feel it would be right and proper to get the board involved in an area of terms and conditions of employment, which is a matter largely for discussion between employers and employees.
7.15 p.m.
Perhaps I may take the opportunity of referring to the Government's intention, outlined in paragraph 65 of the Explanatory Memorandum, of ensuring that the Truck Acts and similar legislation should not impede the operation of recognised occupational schemes. It has not yet been possible to settle on the precise amendments necessary for this. There are some legal complexities which require consideration, but it is our intention to examine them when the Bill reaches another place. It is probable that we shall exclude from the operation of the Truck Acts all bona fide pension schemes, not merely recognised schemes, because we might not otherwise be able to avoid a situation in which doubt is cast on the legality of the deduction from wages of contributions to perfectly respectable schemes. If that is the case, I would regard it as a satisfactory solution.
We would be removing any operation of the Truck Acts from the pensions field —a field which they were not designed to cover. There would be no distinction in that field between certain manual workers and the generalitly of employees. All employees would be on the same footing and it would be up to them to negotiate with employers as to whether a scheme membership should be compulsory.

Mr. Cunningham: I think the Minister will get into difficulty about this. It could happen that a recognition certificate would be withdrawn—perhaps that would be the most obvious case— because in some respect it fell short of recognition requirements. Of course one would hope that then the employer would

amend his scheme to re-acquire recognition, but there are some daft employers about just as there are daft employees. He would then be faced with the situation where because of a defect employees would be obliged to contribute to the reserve scheme as well as to a defective scheme. Then employees would say, "Why did you not fix this in the Bill? Will you introduce an amendment now?" The Government would say that it had no time to do so because of its heavy programme and we would all be condemned as noodles. We seem to be laying up for ourselves criticism in the future.

Mr. Meacher: This is an important new clause to ensure that it shall not be a condition of employment that members of the reserve pension scheme shall be members of an unrecognised occupational pension scheme. I do not think the Under-Secretary has fuly taken into account the force of the argument. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell) is well known for his encouragement of options. Clearly, if this new clause were not accepted it would be denying the option to a member of an occupational scheme to join the reserve pension scheme when it might be considerably better for him to do so.
In Committee, the Under-Secretary said that the chances were that in the majority of cases members would have a higher level of cover in occupational pension schemes than in the reserve schemes. I stress the words "in the majority of cases". There is at least a minority of cases—an unspecified number—in which the member would be worse off if compelled to be in the occupational scheme as opposed to the reserve scheme. We are debating whether an employee should have the choice of what is in his own interests. The question to be considered is whether, on the rate of inflation, the occupational scheme is better than the reserve scheme. One aim of the Bill, if this proposal is not accepted, will be to encourage employers to set up schemes and to avoid the 2½ per cent. minimum contribution.
They will be able to do this, amazing as it might seem, because the minimum benefit criteria are so low. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead said, a young person with family commitments may well wish to postpone his liability to pay say, a 5 per cent. contri-


bution to an occupational scheme until he is better off. The Minister did not comment on that argument. I would have thought it a reasonable one because clearly a person cannot always commit himself to five years' service to get a preserved pension.
I recall the relevant estimate which my right hon. Friend gave in Committee. I am grateful for it. It was not denied by the Minister at the time. It was that a young man in a job for as much as six or seven years would do as well with a 1½ per cent. contribution to the reserve pension scheme as if he were to make a 5 per cent. contribution to an occupational pension scheme and if he then went into the reserve pension scheme afterwards and obtained a preserved pension. We have to bear in mind the fact that the reserve pension scheme offers bonuses. That is a pretty staggering comparison and shows how unreasonable it would be to deny all choice to a member and force him into an occupational scheme which is not even recognised.
Thirdly, it is agreed on both sides that in some occupational pension schemes the young subsidise the old. Although this may be to the advantage of older workers it is a rather different principle to insist that younger workers should be forced into a situation whereby they are bound to do this. That again would follow if new Clause 4 were not accepted.
The fourth reason why the Minister has been altogether too quick in dismissing the clause is that preservation in an occupational pension scheme is worse for a number of young workers. If a single person in such a scheme leaves his employment before he marries when no widow's benefit arises from the preserved pension. However, if he had been in the reserve pension scheme all the time he would be able to pay benefit for his future wife.
The last reason why I believe that this is an important clause and will recommend my hon. Friends to support it is, as the Minister will recognise, employers might be denying recognition for other than reasonable reasons. They might refuse to seek recognition because they do not want to give information to the Occupational Pensions Board or they might be investing their money as a form of self-investment in a way which clearly the board would think inappropriate.

The reasons which the hon. Gentleman gave for rejecting Clause 3 was that the member of the reserve pension scheme might be a member of an occupational scheme which provided a lump sum benefit on retirement which was not such as to gain recognition but which at the same time was nevertheless handy to him.
I accept the point that it is not only rogue schemes which cannot gain recognition. The point remains that there are a number of rogue schemes, and employees clearly need protection in such cases. The Minister suggested, as a reason for rejecting new Clause 3—which I would not insist on putting to a vote— that it was best left to negotiation between employer and employee. While I agree that the powers of the clause are rather stronger than I would wish, nevertheless this is endangering the interests of employees, because clearly in a number of cases employees will not be able to detect some of the disadvantages under this exceedingly complex Bill. To assume that all employees are members of trade unions, all of whom are advised by pensions experts, is, I regret to say, unrealistic. The rejection of new Clause 3 is unhappy.
The Minister's rejection of new Clause 4 was altogether much weaker and more unreasonable. He said it would be difficult to impose on the Occupational Pensions Board at this stage. He further said that he would keep the matter under review which is a first-class way of passing the buck. He said that if he found from experience that employees were compelled against their will to join an unsuitable scheme then he would ask the Occupational Pensions Board to examine the situation and to prevent it. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South-West (Mr. George Cunningham) put his finger on the point when he said it is no good allowing such a Bill to go through with a loophole of that kind merely with a commitment that if what is feared will happen happens the Government will look into it. It is clear that it will happen in some cases. That can be predicted. It is irresponsible not to take some reasonable amending action now.
I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman to look again at the force of the arguments that have been put forward about how


unreasonable it is to compel someone against their self-interest, and I think he will acknowledge that, to be a member of a scheme when it is not in their long-term interests. Is it not also the case that as this amendment is likely to be necessary at a later stage it would be far better to insert it now? On that basis, unless the hon. Gentleman can give me further satisfaction, I will have to recommend my hon. Friends to vote on new Clause 4.

Mr. Dean: I will reply with the leave of the House. I thought that I had made a sympathetic and forthcoming response about the principle of new Clause 4. I do not want to delay proceedings by rehearsing the arguments. If I did not convey that clearly enough let me be a little more specific. I understand the point that has been made. There is an area in which additional safeguards may be required. If I have not given a sufficiently clear assurance let me go a bit further and say that I will undertake to introduce an amendment in another place which will permit regulations to require some form of intervention by the Occupational Pensions Board in this sphere.
I must make it clear that 1 do not think it would be reasonable to ask the Board to do this until after April 1975 when the original rush of work is over. If it would satisfy the House I am prepared to go a little further and ensure, by the necessary amendment to provide a regulation-making power, that the power is specifically there and can be used if it is required after the completion of the initial rush of work.

Mr. Meacher: Will the hon. Gentleman clarify what he said? He said at the end of his latest speech that if it were necessary he would do this. I thought he started by saying he would do it anyway. If it is merely a case of introducing regulations to prevent such malpractices or undesirable practices, if that is found necessary, I cannot see that this is different from what he said initially. I gave my response to that. If he is saying that he will definitely do it I cannot see why he is unwilling to accept the clause now. In any case, I cannot see how far the hon. Gentleman has helped the House.

Mr. Dean: If I may again have the leave of the House, clearly it would be wrong for the Government or this House to prejudge the way in which the Occupational Pensions Board will carry out its duties. I cannot therefore be as specific as new Clause 4. What I have done is to give an undertaking that we will introduce an amendment in another place permitting regulations to require some form of occupational pension intervention. I hope the House will feel that this is a forthcoming undertaking and as far as I can reasonably go in an area in which the Occupational Pensions Board must have a say about how it carries out these powers.

7.30 p.m.

Mr. Dell: The hon. Gentleman has met the point of my intervention. He is now saying that a regulation-making power would be necessary, and that the Government will introduce an amendment in the House of Lords to ensure that the necessary powers are available. There is still some worry about the matter. The hon. Gentleman says that the Occupational Pensions Board will not, for some time, have the resources available to take on this additional task. That is a cause of worry because there may be cases in which the action 'should be taken very rapidly after the inauguration of the Bill. If the board cannot undertake this additional task the hon. Gentleman should provide some other way for it to be done.
Members of the Opposition have on many occasions expressed concern about the resources of the board in relation to the task which is laid upon it in the Bill. What the Minister said today confirms my feeling that it will be greatly over-weighted. The Minister may find that some machinery other than the board will be needed. I mentioned the board in the clause, because I did not think it was for me to create the new machinery, in the light of the Minister's earlier assurances.
Will the Minister consider whether the amendment which he proposes to introduce in the House of Lords should give the possibility of some other means of intervention if the board is overwhelmed by its existing statutory task? Can the Minister go a little further and say that the Government recognise the matter as


being sufficiently important to have a reserve up their sleeve in case the board is not able to deal with it? It would be wrong for Parliament to place people in that sort of peril when by a small change in the Bill it could be prevented. I am sure that the House will give the Minister leave to speak for the fourth time to say whether he will consider embodying in the amendment which he proposes to put forward in the House of Lords reserve machinery to tackle the task if, as I suspect, for some years after 1975 the board will not be able to deal with the task.

Mr. Dean: With the leave of the House, I should like to say that I will consider, without commitment, what the hon. Gentleman said. The Occupational Pensions Board will have substantial powers in this area. The fact that any scheme has to be recognised and must fulfil the standards in the Bill, and must satisfy the board that it is doing so, or that the people concerned have to be in the reserve pension scheme, is a considerable power.
In addition, there is the power of supervision through the tax relief mechanism. There will be these two areas of control over schemes, one of which has not previously existed. The power will be very considerable and adequate. Without commitment I will consider what the right hon. Gentleman said about the amendment to which I have referred and to the regulations which will follow.

Mr. Dell: In view of the Minister's assurances, I will ask leave to withdraw new Clause 3, and I will not move new Clause 4. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 5

MINIMUM EMPLOYER'S CONTRIBUTION TO OCCUPATIONAL PENSION SCHEMES.

The Occupational Pensions Board shall not recognise any scheme unless it is satisfied that the employers' contributions to the scheme are at least equal to those that would be payable by the employer to the Reserve Pension Scheme; but the Occupational Pensions Board may authorise such payments to be made at such times as appear to it appropriate.—[Mr. Dell.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Dell: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I emphasise that we are now talking about occupational pension schemes. I propose that a 2½ per cent. minimum contribution should be written into the Bill as a safety-net provision. Under the reserve scheme this is the employer's contribution. It should be laid down in the Bill that this should be the minimum contribution to an occupational scheme. I do not believe that the Government have good reason to object. It is surely something that they believe will happen anyway. They believe that employers will contribute at least as much as employees to occupational pension schemes. That is their answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South-West (Mr. George Cunningham) on his tax amendment.
The Government are to ban nominal contributions by employers, at any rate in respect of recognised occupational pension schemes. The Minister said in Committee that the Occupational Pensions Board would refuse recognition to any occupational pensions scheme in respect of which the employer made only a nominal contribution.
For money purchase schemes, the Government have laid down that there should be a 50-50 division of the minimum 5 per cent. contribution. They have not simply stated that the total shall be 5 per cent. They have said that the total shall be a minimum of 5 per cent., and that the employer must pay at least 2½ per cent. They have never explained why, if within the money purchase scheme that minimum is laid down and there is the principle of a 50-50 contribution, the same should not apply as a minimum within other occupational pension schemes.
The sort of scheme that will be offered by respectable insurance companies to employers will probably cost 4½ per cent. to 5 per cent. to meet the minimum conditions, unless there is something special about the age structure of the employer's firm. For example, if there is a heavy weighting of young workers those figures might go down. They might also be changed if very favourable assessments are made, such as I do not believe properly could be made by a respectable insurance company, of bonuses or gains from preservation.
If it is true, as I suspect, that such an insurance company would offer employers schemes that would cost that range of percentages—say, 4½ per cent. to 5 per cent.—it is reasonable to lay down, if we take the idea of a 50-50 division, a minimum of 2½ per cent. as the employer's contribution. But—and this is the problem—I believe that unless special protection is written into the Bill some brokers will try to persuade some insurance companies to sell competitive schemes which undercut the reserve pension scheme.
We should remember to whom the schemes will be sold. They will be sold to firms that have resisted 25 years of selling effort by the insurance industry to persuade them to introduce occupational pension schemes. Brokers will be trying to persuade employers who will be attracted by such special offers, wanting simply a means of undercutting the reserve pension scheme.
There are various ways in which the contribution to the reserve pension scheme can be undercut and yet the minimum benefit levels met—for example, by favourable assumptions regarding the age structure and bonuses, by employers paying less than half, or by bonuses accruing to the scheme rather than to the beneficiaries. There is no protection in the Bill in respect of occupational pension schemes to see that bonuses shall accrue to the beneficiaries. That is one disadvantage in the occupational pension scheme provision as compared with the reserve pension scheme, under which we at any rate have the assurance that bonuses will accrue to the beneficiaries. There is no such assurance for occupational pension schemes, where they may accrue to the scheme, thereby reducing the contribution that employers have to make over the years to such schemes which are run by them or for them.
I should like to refer now to an illustration, which is publicly available, of the sort of thing which may happen. I have here a document which was kindly sent to me by the Legal and General Assurance Society Limited—I make no criticism of that company—entitled "L & G Earnings-Related Pension Plan". The document, which presents employers with the Legal and General's offer for meeting

the requirements of the Bill, makes no mention whatever of what the employer's contribution to the scheme that it will run for him will be. The only thing it says under the heading "Costing" on page 13 is:
The cost to the employer is expressed as a percentage of his payroll. This enables him to budget in advance. The level of cost depends on the size of benefits, the rate of employees' contributions and their average age and whether the benefits have to be revalued.
There is no indication there of what the employer's contribution will be. The company gives an example in which the employee's contribution is 2½ per cent., but does not even give an example of what the employer's contribution might be.
I suspect that unless the Bill contains the sort of protection that my new clause is intended to create many employers will take the benefit from bonuses, and that as a result their contributions will be reduced, to the disadvantage of their employees. I believe that there is a need to protect the interests of employees within the occupational pension system.
We had a discussion in Committee about whether there should be a benefit test or a contribution test. The Minister emphasised many times that the Government had thought very carefully about the problem and decided that the right test was a benefit and not a contribution test. My first comment is that the value of a benefit test depends on the minimum benefits laid down, and the minimum benefits written into the Bill are very poor. But even with good minimum benefits, higher than those provided in the Bill, it would still be necessary to provide this protection concerning the employer's contribution. There is a need for a contribution test as well, and the test that I suggest is a minimum of 2½ per cent.
I should like to deal with the Government's arguments on this point in so far as I know and understand them. The first is that the protection will be given by trade unions in the course of negotiation. But however well-informed trade unions are to protect their members in the course of such negotiations—and I hope that they do become well-informed on these matters and operate to protect their members' interests—not all workers are represented by trade unions. Indeed,


the majority are not, and their interests as well as those of members of trade unions need to be protected.
I entirely agree with the Government that trade unions will want to know what the employer's contribution is, and because of that, and because they will reasonably want to know and perhaps exercise their negotiating power to ensure that they do, that is another reason why the Government might as well concede my case, because I do not believe that trade unions with negotiating power will accept an employer's contribution of less than 2½ per cent.
The Government's second argument, so far as I understand it, is that there is already protection within the Bill. The Minister said in Committee:
Where such representations
—for example, from employees to the Occupational Pensions Board—
show that the employer is blatantly seeking to put almost all the burden of contributions on to his employees without good reason, the Occupational Pensions Board will have power to withhold recognition."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee E, 8th March 1973; c. 833.]
Has the House ever heard a more carefully qualified statement:
 blatantly … almost all … without good reason "?
I will say this for the Minister, that at any rate on this point he is saying that there is a contribution test of some kind in the Bill. He is saying that there is a contribution test in that there will be this protection against
blatantly seeking to put almost all the burden … on to his employees".
But what is needed is a much firmer form of protection than is provided by the Minister by that statement, or by Clause 50(4)(b), which is its proposed statutory basis. We watched the Minister carefully in Committee when he was reading out those words. They were carefully formulated. We deduced their significance from the care with which they were formulated. They mean that there is precious little protection within the Bill for employees against very low employer contributions.
7.45 p.m.
The third argument put forward by the Government was supported by the hon. Member for Kensington, South (Sir B.

Rhys Williams). Within these occupational pension schemes an employer's liability is unpredictable as to timing and amount. That argument having been put before me, I recognise the fact that an employer's liability is unpredictable as to timing. I meet that argument within the new clause—
the Occupational Pensions Board may authorise such payments to be made at such times as appear to it appropriate.
Therefore, I have met the point about timing.
I do not accept the argument about amount because in respect of the sort of schemes which we are considering which are primarily minimum benefit schemes for manual workers, there should be minimum contributions.
There is an important attraction in the new clause which could even help to prevent the defeat of the Government's pension strategy. At the moment young people will often see their interests in being in the reserve pension scheme because of the low contribution which they will have to make, and because of the comparable out-turn they will gain after many years of membership of the scheme. Further, it will not carry the social burden of the cross-subsidy to old people. Therefore there will be great pressure, and greater pressure than the Government have estimated, by many members of the community to be in the reserve pension scheme and not the occupational pension scheme. That might even be powerful enough to defeat the Government's whole strategy within the Bill and to render the Bill virtually null and void.
If there were minimum employer contributions, that could slightly alter the balance in favour of occupational pension schemes, thus providing better benefits than those laid down as the minimum benefits within the Bill. Therefore, the new clause has an advantage to the Gov-ment, and it certainly provides a necessary form of protection to employees.

Sir B. Rhys Williams: The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell) has done the useful thing of giving the House the opportunity to consider the sort of schemes that can be offered to employers which seem to require much smaller contributions than at present are laid down in the Bill for the reserve scheme. I am told that at least one of the most respected


life offices has evolved a scheme which, I assume, passes the recognition test for career earnings—certainly not for final salary or money purchase—which requires contributions from the two sides of only 3½ per cent.
That is not just a fugitive or catchpenny offer, which is likely to be withdrawn as soon as it attracts attention. It has been based on a reasonable expectation of the long-term rate of interest. In the event of the Bills remaining as it stands, I suppose it would be possible for employers who were attracted by such a scheme to negotiate with their employees that they should make a contribution of 1½ per cent. while the employers would pay 2 per cent. In that way they would be able to produce a rock-bottom scheme which would comply with the requirements of the Bill.

Mr. O'Malley: Will the hon. Gentleman go back a few sentences? He mentioned a life office which had produced a scheme with 3½ per cent. contributions. I was not clear, and neither were some of my hon. Friends, whether the hon. Gentleman was talking about a total contribution of 3½ per cent. or 3½ per cent. from either side. Will the hon. Gentleman make that clear?

Sir B. Rhys Williams: The 3½ per cent. is the joint contribution which would then have to be split between the employer and the employees by negotiation. If the Government are successful in persuading the House to restore the tax bias, which was decisively rejected in Committee, it will be possible for employers to negotiate with their employees that they should make a contribution of 2 per cent. or possibly even more. If they are under a private scheme they will be able to get the advantage of the tax concession. In that way, to agree with the employers' proposal to join the private scheme would make it possible for them to suggest to employees that they should pay a 2 per cent. contribution to the private scheme. In that way they would get away with a smaller net loss of immediate spending power than if they were to join the reserve scheme. More than 2 per cent. could be required of employees on that basis. I take 2 per cent. because of the ease of calculation of the example. It would make it possible

for the employer to pay only 1½ per cent. to a scheme which would then be approv-able under the terms of the Bill.
I am not qualified as an actuary but it is reasonably fair to expect that a scheme into which is paid rock-bottom contributions will provide only rock-bottom benefits in the end. The Government should not encourage or even allow offers of that kind. They will tempt employers into setting up occupational pension schemes of the kind that will bring the whole occupational pension movement into discredit.

Mr. Dell: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that what he is now saying substantially undermines the principle in another part of the Bill which previously he has supported, namely, the principle of laying down the type of minimum benefit that the Bill incorporates, the significance of which depends entirely on the rate of inflation and, by implication, on the going rates of interest? If that is so, he is confirming the poverty level of the minimum benefits laid down in respect of occupational pension schemes within the Bill.

Sir B. Rhys Williams: The problem of inflation, which the right hon. Gentleman now introduces, is one which vexes every kind of pension scheme, whether it is a scheme sponsored by the State, a reserve scheme under State auspices but without any State subsidy, or a private occupational scheme. No one can pretend to be able to say how future inflation will be tackled. All they can do is to try to move into the future with assets large enough to carry them through honestly as best they are able in face of changes in the value of money.
I believe that almost insoluble problems will arise if we accept the new clause as the right hon. Gentleman has proposed it. Of course, he has gone a long way to meeting the point that I made in Committee, that there cannot be, year in and year out, identical contributions from employers. There may be a change in the value of money, which would cause unpredictable changes in the funding of the scheme. For instance, there may be capital gains in the trust from time to time which would make it unnecessary for an employer constantly to put new money into the scheme. On the other hand, there may be capital losses.


It is difficult to draw any comparison over a period between reserve scheme contributions, which are of a money purchase character, and the sort of contributions which even the strictest and soundest actuarial assessment would require of an employer who was running a final salary scheme. So, even now, I am not entirely happy with what the right hon. Gentleman is suggesting.
I support the Government's idea that what matter in the end are the benefits which derive from the schemes rather than the way that employers tackle the question of funding. Therefore, I should like to consider this matter from the point of view of possibly including a further overriding benefit test which could be seen to be directly linked to the performance by the employer of some kind of money purchase routine, even though the character of the benefits which eventually emerge is not limited by the money purchase concept.
The test should be that the scheme will give benefits as good as could have been obtained if a minimum contribution had been given at least equal to that required for the reserve scheme, plus a reasonable formula for protection for changes in money values. There could be a great deal of argument about what constitutes a reasonable formula, but I should like my hon. Friend—I am glad that my right hon. Friend is also present—to consider whether there is something attractive about a scheme which ensures that the beneficiary should not get less under any circumstances than would have been obtained if a money purchase contribution equal to the reserve scheme contribution had been invested in the gilt-edged market. The beneficiary then gets at least the increment which can be obtained in the gilt-edged market either by investing in shares which give over 10 per cent. interest rates or where there is an accrued capital gain to the investor. Though the gilt-edged market may have a bad name in terms of inflation, it exists, and the prices which are obtained by buyers and sellers of Government securities reflect the market's assessment of what genuinely constitutes the long-term rate of interest, plus the rate of interest necessary to compensate for changes in the value of money as seen by the market from day to day.
It would not be difficult for an employer to enter into a commitment to guarantee the beneficiaries that their money should grow on the basis that it had been invested in the gilt-edged market. If he should lose his nerve investing in property, equities, or in some other way, he can fall back on investing the money in the gilt-edged market, and he is free of risk, at the same time going along with the market in terms of changes in the value of money. This would be the soundest and simplest way of introducing an underlying dynamism into the occupational pension scheme movement.
I implore my hon. Friend to study this proposal closely. It would give people confidence in occupational pension schemes which they cannot have while there is no certainty that they will be able to tackle inflation even as well as people who are investing in Government stock. I trust that my hon. Friend will give further consideration to that point. For the moment, I do not believe it would be right for the House to accept the precise wording of the new clause.

Mr. Boscawen: While recognising the great knowledge of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell) and sympathising somewhat with the aims behind the new clause, I cannot see the practical difficulty in overcoming the situation where an employer in a final salary scheme wishes to vary the contributions of employees during their careers. Will he indicate further how this could be done?
I accept what my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington, South (Sir B. Rhys Williams) said about the need to tighten up on the benefit tests in these cases rather than fixing on minimum contributions in the way suggested by the right hon. Gentleman.

8.0 p.m.

Mr. Dean: I begin by reminding the House that the tests laid down in the Bill are minimum standards. However, the very fact that all schemes going for recognition must meet these standards will mean that the minimum will be a ppringboard from which schemes will wish to improve their arrangements rather than a pillow on which they can relax. Many schemes already do substantially more in some areas for which standards are being laid down and, in


some instances, in all areas than was the case before.
We shall have over 60,000 schemes put, as it were, under a microscope. Indeed, never before will so many schemes have reviewed their arrangements to a deadline to come up to the standards for recognition, if they are not there already. This is an essential background to the standards and to the points made by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell) in introducing the new clause.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to the possibility of schemes being offered which would, in effect, undercut the reserve pension scheme. My hon. Friend the Member for Kensington, South (Sir B. Rhys Williams) quoted an example of a contribution of 3½ per cent. being offered. I think my hon. Friend will agree that if that is the position it will be governed largely by the unusually high rates of interest which now obtain.
The essential point is that we have deliberately gone for a benefit test. We felt that through a benefit test we would be more likely to get the objective we all wished—namely, a minimum level of benefit coming out of the scheme at the end. Whatever the contributions going in may be—clearly they will vary—to achieve recognition a scheme will have to come up to the standard of one of the benefit tests which are being laid down. I submit that the right hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington. South are asking the Government to change from a benefit to a contribution test.

Sir B. Rhys Williams: No.

Mr. Dean: In effect, the right hon. Gentleman was saying that there must be a minimum contribution going into the scheme. My hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Boscawen) made the relevant point that if one is to do that one will make it almost certain that schemes which do not lend themselves to a contribution test now—in other words, schemes formed on any basis other than the money purchase basis—will have to change their arrangements artificially, and against the interests of their members in many instances, to try to fit in with the proposals being put forward. My hon. Friend made this point with particular regard to the final salary scheme.
In the money purchase scheme there is no difficulty about requiring a minimum contribution from the employer. That is what we are doing in the alternative money purchase test. But there are many other cases where this does not fit. For example, the employer may be financing back-service credits for his employees and it would be virtually impossible to determine what proportion of his contributions are in respect of currently accruing benefits.
The employer guarantees overall benefits in both the average and final salary schemes. This was the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wells. The employer's contributions are not related to individual employees, so it would again be virtually impossible to apportion them on that basis. Indeed, as the cost of such schemes inevitably varies over the years with changes in interest rates and the age distribution of the scheme's membership, the commitments of the employer are bound to fluctuate as well. In times when the scheme was in surplus it would be futile to require a minimum employer's contribution because it would purchase no further benefits under the scheme. At other times, however, the employer may be required to make good fairly substantial deficits arising, for example, from large salary increases in final salary schemes.
In effect the new clause is saying to the Government that there should be a substantial change in the recognition conditions and a change which would certainly not fit easily into most schemes. Above all, it would not fit easily into the final salary scheme, which is generally regarded, certainly for people whose earnings will rise throughout their working life, as one of the best and most progressive schemes.
Having said that, let me remind the House of the very substantial safeguards which are written into the Bill already concerning employers' liability. In addition to requiring employers to have some legal liability to finance the minimum benefits, we have empowered the board, in Clauses 57 and 60, to require steps to be taken to increase the scheme's resources in order to secure minimum benefits. The responsibility for taking those steps—for example, for balancing the books—will fall on the employer. The board will have power, once recognition


has been withdrawn, to sue him for any money which it has ordered him to pay for this purpose.
This provision recognises the employer's true rôle under a benefit test. Any employer seeking recognition under one of these tests will know that, even though his contributions are low at one time, he still has overall responsibility for ensuring that the minimum benefits are paid and can find himself being ordered to pay large sums of money over to the scheme.
Moreover, as I said in Committee— the right hon. Member for Birkenhead also referred to this—if a case arises where an employer attempts to shift almost all the contributions on to his empoyees, they will be able to make representations to the Occupational Pensions Board, which has a discretionary power under Clause 50 to refuse or withdraw recognition in such cases.
Therefore, there are these safeguards with regard to the employers liability. But to do as the right hon. Member for Birkenhead is suggesting would substantially change the character of the recognition conditions and, above all, it would make it very difficult for some of the best schemes to fulfil the conditions without substantially changing their character probably against the interests and the pension prospects of the members of those schemes.

Mr. O'Malley: One must recognise that when one is dealing with 60,000 schemes and a multiplicity of types of scheme, an Opposition Member or any back-bench Member moving an amendment or a new clause, as in this case, can always be told that the complexity of the structure which he is seeking to amend means that his amendment will be defective and would cause all kinds of difficulties.
I recognise the validity of the arguments of the hon. Member for Kensing-, ton, South (Sir B. Rhys Williams) and the Under-Secretary when they discussed the question of final salary schemes. But as I understand the last part of new Clause 5, which says:
but the Occupational Pensions Board may authorise such payments to be made at such times as appear to it appropriate",
I should have thought that that would at least deal with the difficulties arising in final salary schemes.

Mr. Dell: There is an additional point. I regard the final salary scheme as a red herring. There is the additional point that any decent final salary scheme requires an employer's contribution far above 2½ per cent. on average over the period of an employee's working life.

Mr. O'Malley: Of course it does. I was coming to the point raised by my right hon. Friend and by the hon. Member for Kensington, South.
The basic reason for the new clause is that salesmen working for insurance companies and life offices will be travelling all over the country with competitive rates to try to take over the business which would otherwise be the business of the reserve pension scheme. From their narrow point of view, what better way to do that than by being able to say that they will provide an occupational pension scheme which will satisfy the minimum criteria and which will cost the employee less than it would cost him if he were making payments into the reserve pension scheme? Indeed, the hon. Member for Kensington, South mentioned what he described as a respectable life office issuing proposals where, for a total of a 3½ per cent. contribution, a rock bottom scheme could be set up which would avoid the obligation to join the reserve pension scheme.
This is the nub of the issue. It is intolerable. It is no good the Undersecretary saying that the Government have decided to go for a benefit test rather than for a contribution test. The attitude of the trade unions, which is absolutely right, is that during a given period an employer should not only be building up accrued rights for his employees but should also be making, in the form of deferred pay, clearly defined contributions towards the future pensions of those employees. Therefore, although in the Bill benefit tests are laid down, I see no reason why the Government should not impose a contribution test of the kind envisaged by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead—if not by the new clause, certainly by regulations.
As the Under-Secretary said, there are safeguards in the Bill. If an employer shifts liability for contributions on to the employees to an unreasonable extent, the employees can make representations


to the board. But, as has been said, firstly it is certainly not all work people who are organised into trade unions and have the benefit of the kind of professional expertise and assistance that will be required in that kind of circumstance.
Therefore, as the Under-Secretary has not been able to accept the broad principle of the new clause, and as he has given no indication that he would attempt to alleviate the misgivings expressed on both sides of the House, which he could have done by saying that regulations would be issued to deal with the problems raised by my right hon. Friend, we on the Opposition benches should vote for new Clause 5. In so doing we shall be reflecting the attitude of the vast bulk of work people in Britain and the trade unions representing many of them, who not only want to know the benefits payable but would also want to be assured that their employers were making at least the minimum kind of contributions of 2½ per cent. which are set out in the reserve pension scheme.
If we allow the Bill to go through unamended so that there is no minimum contribution obligation on employers setting up this minimum type of occupational pension scheme, there will not only be great dissatisfaction but also abuse of the system. The hon. Member for Kensington, South has already demonstrated by the example he has given that that abuse or attempts to introduce that kind of abuse have begun.
For those reasons I hope that the House will accept the new clause.

8.15 p.m.

Mr. Dell: The debate has shown precisely how fragile, from every point of view, is the Government's strategy for pensions. The Minister said that the minimum benefits laid down in the scheme are minima. They are that, I suppose, by definition. He says they are a springboard, not a pillow. Does he not realise that the springboard is descending under him, that it is sinking into the waters? The hon. Member for Kensington, South (Sir B. Rhys Williams) adduced the example of how, given the current rate of inflation, one respectable insurance company has decided that it could pay these benefits at 3½ per cent. total contribution. He demonstrated that there

is no springboard, but a lift going downwards.
I am glad the hon. Gentleman recognises that this has always been the weakness of the benefit test which the Government have laid down. It is a benefit test the significance of which depends on nothing other than the rate of inflation. As the rate of inflation increases—and even at the present rate it is high enough to achieve this result—the significance of this benefit test over the years will decline. Evidently, in the view of one insurance company, it has already declined so much that this benefit test can be made on the basis of a 3½ per cent. contribution
That is the fact the Government must face, and when the hon. Member for Kensington, Souh suggests that a better and different benefit test should therefore be written into the Bill he is absolutely right, because these tests have already disappeared from any reasonable sight. They are becoming worse and worse as inflation proceeds, and if inflation grows worse it can be done not for 3½ per cent., not for 3 per cent., but for less. That alone is justification for what the hon. Member for Kensington, South said—that if there are to be benefit tests, a far better benefit test than is laid down here is needed within this Bill.
But even if we have these benefit tests, that does not meet the point because it still does not provide the necessary protection for employees against an employer deciding, as the Government admit an employer can quite properly decide under the Bill, to have a contribution which is less than half the total contribution made in respect of a particular contribution scheme. The hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Boscawen) asked how this would be calculated. If one has 2½ per cent. over the period of a person's employment and if one satisfies the Occupational Pensions Board that this minimum requirement is being met at the appropriate times, if one is making a big payment at one time and compensating for other payments not made earlier, that is fine. I leave it to the Occupational Pensions Board to decide on the appropriateness of the timing of the contribution. If the Government or the hon. Gentleman have a better way of dealing with it, I shall be perfectly happy to accept anything that will safeguard employees in this respect.
This whole point about a final salary scheme is a total red herring. A good final salary scheme requires very large contributions from employers. We are talking here about 3½ per cent. I mentioned 4½ per cent. or 5 per cent.—more modest figures than the hon. Member for Kensington, South indicated. But a final salary scheme cannot be run on percentages of that kind. The sort of final salary scheme that is now becoming normal in our society requires a contribution of 10 per cent., 12 per cent., or even more. For that sort of scheme the 2½ per cent. I lay down in my new clause will be greatly exceeded. The whole concept of a minimum employers' contribution is irrelevant because the employer guarantees within the scheme certain minimum benefits which make necessary very large contributions. The minimum benefits are protected from the rate of inflation because they are related to final salaries. For these final

salary schemes we do not need it. Where we need it is within the sort of scheme based on minimum benefits the significance of which depreciates year by year with the rate of inflation.

The hon. Gentleman has just not begun to meet the case for a minimum employers' contribution. If he had said that he would do something about the minimum benefit, that would at any rate have consoled me a bit. But completely to ignore the problem which not only I but his hon. Friend the Member for Kensington, South have posed as to what is happening to this Bill before the eyes of the Government day by day is totally unacceptable. Therefore I hope that my hon. Friends will join me in dividing in support of the new clause.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time: —

The House divided: Ayes 171, Noes 190.

Division No. 123.]
AYES
[8.19 p.m.


Abse, Leo
Faulds, Andrew
McElhone, Frank


Archer, Peler (Rowley Regis)
Fernyhough, Rt. Hn. E.
McGuire, Michael


Ashton, Joe
Fitch, Alan (Wigan)
Machin, George


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Fletcher, Raymond (Iikeston)
Mackie, John


Barnett, Joel (Heywood and Royton) 
Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Mackintosh, John P.


Baxter, William
Foot, Michael
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)


Beaney, Alan
Ford, Ben
McNamara, J. Kevin


Bishop, E. S.
Forrester, John
Marks, Kenneth


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Galpern, Sir Myer
Marsden, F.


Boardman, H. (Leigh)
Gilbert, Dr. John
Marshall, Dr. Edmund


Booth, Albert
Gourlay, Harry
Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy


Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur
Grant, George (Morpeth)
Meacher, Michael


Broughton, Sir Alfred
Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)
Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert


Brown, Robert C. (N'c'tle-u-Tyne,W.)
Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Mendelson, John


Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)
Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)
Millan, Bruce


Brown, Ronald(Shoreditch &amp; F'bury)
Hardy, Peter
Mitchell, R. C. (S'hamplon, ltchen)


Buchan, Norman
Harper, Joseph
Molloy, William


Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)


Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Heifer, Eric S.
Morris, Alfred (Wythanshawe)


Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)
Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Moyle, Roland


Cant, R. B.
Huckfield, Leslie
Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick


Carmichael, Neil
Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Oakes, Gordon


Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)
Hughes, Mark (Durham)
Ogden, Eric


Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)
O'Halloran,Michael


Clark, David (Coine Valley)
Hunter Adam
O'Malley, Brian


Cohen, Staniey
Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)
Orbach, Maurice


Conlan, Bernard
Janner Greville
Oswald, Thomas


Crawshaw, Richard
Jenkins Hugh(Putney)
Palmer, Arthur


Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony
John Brynmor
Pardoe, John


Cunningham, G. (Islington, S.W.)
Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)
Parker,John (Degenham)


Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whitehaven)
Jones Barry (Flint E)
Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)


Dalyell, Tam
Jones.'Rt.Hn.Sir ElwynW.Ham.S.)
Pavitt, Laurie


Davidson, Arthur
Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)
Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred


Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)
Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.)
Perry, Ernest G.


Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)
Judd, Frank
Prescott, John


Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)
Kaufman, Gerald
Probert, Arthur


Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund
Kelley, Richard
Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)


Doig, Peter
Kinnock, Neil
Rhodes, Geoffrey


Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)
Lamond, James
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Roberts,Rt.Hn.Goronwy(Caernarvon)


Dunn, James A.
Leonard, Dick
Robertson, John (Paisley)


Dunnett, Jack
Lipton, Marcus
Roderick, Caerwyn E.(Brc'n&amp;R'dnor)


Eadie, Alex
Lomas, Kenneth
Rose, Paul B.


Edwards, William (Merioneth)
Loughlin, Charles
Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)


Ellis, Tom
Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)
Short,Rt.Hn.Edward(N'c'tle-u-Tyne)


English, Michael
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Silkln, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)


Ewing, Harry
McBride, Neil
Sillars, James




Silverman, Julius
Tomney, Frank
while, James (Glasgow, Pollok)


Skinner, Dennis
Tope, Graham
Whitehead, Phillip


Small, William
Torney, Tom
Whitlock, William


Spearing, Nigel
Tuck, Raphael
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


Spriggs, Leslie
Urwin, T. W.
Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)


Stallard, A. W.
Varley, Eric G.
Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)


Steel, David
Wainwright, Edwin
Woof, Robert


Stonehouse, Ht. Hn. John
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)



Strang, Gavin
Watkins, David
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.


Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley
Weitzman, David
Mr. Donald Colman and


Thomas.Rt.Hn.George (Cardiff,W.)
Wellbeloved, James
Mr. J. D. Concannon.


Tinn, James






NOES


Adley Robert
Hall, John (Wycombe)
Powell, Rt. Hn... Enoch


Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)
Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Price, David (Eastleigh)


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Proudfoot, Wilfred


Atkins, Humphrey
Hannam, John (Exeter)
Prm, Rt. Hn. Francis


Awdry, Daniel
Havers, Sir Michael
Quennell, Miss J. M.


Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)
Hawkins, Paul
Raison, Timothy


Batsford, Brian
Hayhoe, Barney
Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)
Holland, Philip
Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter


Benyon, W.
Holt, Miss Mary
Redmond, Robert


Berry, Hn. Anthony
Hordern, Peter
Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)


Bilfen, John
Hornby, Richard
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Biggs-Davlson. John
Hornsby-Smlth.Rt.Hn.Dame Patricia
Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David


Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)
Hunt, John
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)


Body, Richard
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Roberts, Wyn (Conway)


Boscawen, Hn. Robert
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Rost, Peter


Bossom, Sir Clive
Jamas, David
Royle, Anthony


Bowden, Andrew
Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)
Russell, Sir Ronald


Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher
Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh &amp; Whitby)


Bruce-Gardyne, J.
Kaberry, Sir Donald
Simeons, Charles


Bryan, Sir Paul
Kelletl-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine
Sinclair, Sir George


Buchanan-Smith, Allck(Angus,N&amp;M)
Kershaw, Anthony
Skeet, T. H. H.


Buck, Antony
King Evelyn (Dorset S.)
Smith, Dudley (W'wick &amp; L'mlngton)


Butler, dam (Bosworth)
Kinsey J. R.
Soref- Harold


Campbell, Rt.Hn.G.(Moray ft Nairn)
Knox David
Speed, Keith


Carlisle, Mark
Lament Norman
Spence, John


Cary, Sir Robert
Lane, David
Sproat, lain


Chapman, Sydney
Langford-Holt Sir John
Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)


Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher
Le Marchant, Spencer
Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh, W.)


Chichester-Clark, R.
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.


Churchill, W. S.
Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)
Sluttaford, Dr. Tom


Clark, William (Surrey, E.)
Longden Sir Gilbert
Sutclifte, John


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Loveridge, John
Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)


Cockeram, Eric
Luce, R. N.
Taylor,Edward M.(G'gow,Cathcart)


Cooke, Robert
MacArihur, Ian
Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)


Cooper, A. E.
McLaren, Martin
Tebbit, Norman


Cordle, John
Macmillan,Rt.Hn.Maurice (Farnham)
Temple, John M.


Cormack, Patrick
McNalr-Wilson, Michael
Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret


Critchley, Julian
McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)
Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)


Crowder, F. P.
Madel, David
Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.)


d'Avigdor-Goldsmid.Maj.-GeivJack
Maude, Angus
Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)


Dean, Paul
Mawby, Ray
Tilney, John


Deedes, Rt.Hn. W. F.
Meyer, Sir Anthony
Trafford, Dr. Anthony


Digby, Simon Wingfield
Miscampbell, Norman
Tugendhat, Christopher


Dykes, Hugh
Mitchell,Lt.-Col.C.(Aberdeenshire,W)
Turton Rt. Hn. Sir Robin


Edwards Nicholas Pembroke)
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
vickers, Dame Joan


Elliott, R. W. (N' c' tle-upon-Tyne,N.)
Molyneaux, James
Waddington, David


Eyre, Reginald
Monks, Mrs. Connie
Walder, David (Clilheroe)


Farr, John
Monro, Hector
Wall, Patrick


Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead)
Montgomery, Fergus
Ward, Dame Irene


Fisher, Nigel (Surblton)
More, Jasper
Warren, Kenneth


Fookes, Miss Janet
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.
Wealherill, Bernard


Fortescue, Tim
Morrison, Charles
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Fowler, Norman
Mudd, David
White,Roger (Gravesend)


Fox, Marcus
Murton, Oscar
Wiggln, Jerry


Fraser,Rt.Hn.Hugh(St fford &amp; Stone)
Nabarro, Sir Gerald
Winterton, Nicholas


Fry, Peter
Neave, Airey
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Gibson-Watt, David
Nicholls, Sir Harmar
Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher


Glyn, Dr. Alan
Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally
Woodnutt, Mark


Gower, Raymond
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Worsley, Marcus


Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)
Owen, idris (Stockport, N.)
Younger, Hn. George


Gray, Hamish
Page, John (Harrow, W.)



Green, Alan
Parkinson, Cecil
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Grylls, Michael
Perclval, Ian
Mr. Michael Jopling and


Gummer, J. Selwyn
Pike, Miss Mervyn
Mr. Victor Goodhew


Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)
Pink, R. Bonner

Question accordingly negatived.

New Clause 6

REPORTS BY GOVERNMENT ACTUARY ON PENSION POSITION OF OLDER PERSONS

(1) It shall be the duty of the Government Actuary to report to the Secretary of State, at intervals no greater than two years, on:

(a) the age composition of members of pension schemes,
(b) the number of persons over the age of 45 covered by pension schemes of different kinds,
(c) the pension entitlement which will be acquired under the scheme at the statutory age of retirement or the age of retirement specified by the scheme, by members of pension schemes who at the date of the report are over the age of 45, and in such groupings and on such assumptions as seem to him appropriate.

(2) The Secretary of State may by regulation specify such other matters relating to the pension position of persons over the age of 45 as it seems to him should be covered in the Government Actuary's report.

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Dell: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu): It will be convenient to discuss at the same time new Clause 8;

REVIEW OF RESERVE PENSION SCHEME

'(1) The Secretary of State shall, at five yearly intervals (or more frequently if he thinks fit) review the conditions of, contribution requirements for, and benefits paid by the reserve pension scheme.

The Secretary of State shall prepare a report on the scheme following each such review, and copies of the report shall be laid before each House of Parliament.

The first such review shall be completed not later than 31st December 1978'.

8.30 p.m.

Mr. Dell: The House may be relieved to notice that this is the last new clause in which I have taken a lead, although I saw fit to offer my support to new Clauses 7 and 8 in the name of the hon. Member for Kensington, South (Sir B. Rhys Williams).
This new clause asks for reports to be made at intervals no greater than two years on the pensions position of older people. The reason for calling for special reports by the Government Actuary is that I believe that the position of older people is gravely endangered by the Bill. I am speaking now of people over the age of, say, 45. I shall explain why I

take that view in respect of both the reserve pension scheme and the occupational pension scheme.
Speaking specifically of people of, for example, 45 years of age and upwards, let us consider their position within the reserve pension scheme. First, they will get pathetically small pensions compared, for example, with what supplementary benefit would provide for them. Indeed, even taking account of such disregards as may be available, they may find that their real net increase in income as a result of many years' contributions to the reserve pension scheme will be very small.
In Committee, by means of an amendment to Schedule 18, I attempted to raise the reserve pension provision for older people, but this was defeated on a vote because—this was the argument employed against it—it needed a cross-subsidy from employers and younger workers, and the Government thought that such a cross-subsidy was inappropriate within a fallback scheme such as the reserve pension scheme. The argument was that, unlike occupational pension schemes, where this kind of cross-subsidy takes place, there is no community of interest within the reserve pension scheme and that it would therefore be quite inappropriate to have such a cross-subsidy.
I have never followed the argument based on lack of a community of interest, because there is no greater community of interest within the basic pension scheme than there is within the reserve pension scheme. But within the basic scheme the Government are proposing, despite the lack of a community of interest, to have cross-subsidies from people who are slightly better off to people who are worse off. So the problem which exists under the reserve pension scheme as the Government are proposing it is that after many years of contribution older workers will get very poor benefits.
Let us consider the position under the occupational pension provisions within the Bill. The minimum benefits here also give poor pensions for older workers, especially in the first 20 years of operation of the scheme. I am speaking of minimum benefits. This does not of course apply to final salary scheme, as I said in the last debate. Those benefits are well above the minimum benefit. But it applies to the minimum benefit laid down within


this scheme, particularly if it is a money purchase scheme; and even if it is an average salary scheme such as the normal type of minimum benefit, the 1 per cent. or 1½25 per cent. per annum type of scheme that is proposed if the minimum benefits of this scheme, as laid down in the Bill, are finally passed.
The first point, therefore, is that the minimum benefits will be poor. They will be poor even if it is that kind of average salary scheme, and very poor if, as is not unlikely, employers use the opportunity of the money purchase alternative in the Bill to use money purchase schemes in respect of older workers. In that case it will be very much worse.
In Committee the Government agreed to make regulations under Clause 50 prohibiting the exclusion of older workers in employment from an occupational pension scheme. As I argued for that provision to be made I can hardly do other than welcome it. It is good as far as it goes. The trouble with the Bill is that within it all silver linings have their cloud. In an average salary scheme, for example, the kind of scheme laid down here—the 1 per cent. or 1½25 per cent. scheme—it will be very expensive for an employer to provide that kind of minimum benefit for a person who is 55 years old. It could cost total contributions of 8 per cent. or 9 per cent. I discount such exceptional examples as the hon. Member for Kensington, South gives, but I also accept the point that, given the high rates of interest, the 8 per cent. or 9 per cent. could fall. It would still be expensive to provide the minimum benefits laid down in the Bill to a person of 55.
The Government may say that they will not allow an employer to exclude such a person from an occupational pension scheme. There is, unfortunately, one way in which an employer can exclude such a person from a scheme and against which the Government cannot guard. The employer may decide that the man of 55 is too old to employ, and that it would cost the employer too much. So there is a danger, within the Bill, that it will become more difficult for older people to secure employment. In some cases employers are likely to refuse to employ them because they cost more. There is a serious danger that the Government's second pension scheme will make it more

difficult for older people to get employment in firms with occupational pension schemes. Such firms are estimated to have at least half, and probably more, of the employees eligible under the Bill.
There is another danger for older people as a result of the occupational pension scheme provisions. Money purchase schemes, with their poor return to older workers, will be very attractive to employers where the age structure is higher than the average. On the other hand, average salary schemes will be used where the age structure is lower than average. For the beneficiaries, however, it should be the other way round. The older worker wants a guarantee at least of an average salary scheme, poor as the minimum benefits are, and, better still, of a final salary scheme, which is far outside the vision of the Bill. For younger people the advantage will lie in the money purchase scheme rather than the average salary scheme, even the money purchase scheme as laid down in the minimum levels of the Bill. For the beneficiaries, therefore, the Bill seeks to achieve exactly the opposite to what they require.
The older person needs more and is likely to get less; the younger person will be incorporated probably in an average salary scheme, and he will pay the cost of it. I do not object to that. I have argued that there should be a subsidy from younger people to older people, but the older person is likely to suffer. The situation needs to be watched. I would have preferred the Government to accept, in Committee, the amendment that would have improved the minimum benefits to older people, changed the nature of the reserve scheme, and taken particular account of the difficulties for older people. Unfortunately, the Government resisted us all along the road, except on the point I mentioned earlier, which means that they will ensure that employers cannot exclude older people in employment from their occupational pension schemes. This has a corresponding disadvantage, in that they may then be excluded from employment altogether.
The Secretary of State will see that the new clause mentions specifically three types of matter on which the Government Actuary is required to report. Subsection (l)(a) refers to
the age composition of members of pension schemes.


The object of that, among other things, is that it will show whether older people are finding it difficult to get employment. We should be able to compare the age composition of the members of pension schemes with the age composition of the employable population as a whole, and then see whether older people were finding it difficult to get jobs.
Subsection (l)(b) refers to
the number of persons over the age of 45 covered by pensions schemes of different kinds.
That would show whether—as I suspect may happen—older people are being forced into employments, covered either by the reserve pension scheme or by money purchase schemes. Both types provide particularly badly for older workers.
Subsection (l)(c) refers to the estimate that I place upon the shoulders for the Government Actuary to make for the eventual pensions entitlement of such persons on reasonable assumptions. That will show us how badly older persons are doing anyhow.
Those are pieces of information which should be available to the Secretary of State as he watches the progress of his legislation. They should also be available to the country at the same time. It is vital that all this information should be known, so that the Government of the day, of whatever colour, can take appropriate action. The appropriate action required would probably be some cross-subsidy to older people within the reserve pension scheme, plus better control of money purchase schemes within the occupational pensions sector, plus better minimum benefits, plus a minimum employer's contribution, such as the House has just rejected.
With the advantage of hindsight, which the right hon. Gentleman said he had used in respect of earlier amendments, based on information of the report the Government Actuary will provide, he may later be able to tell the House that the Opposition were right on 8th May 1973 to suggest that there should be a minimum employers' contribution, and that he now accepts their advice and will make provision for the new legislation accordingly. I fear, however, that it will fall to a different Government to do that.

Sir B. Rhys Williams: In your wisdom, you were kind enough, Mr. Speaker, to

include my new Clause 8 with new Clause 6, recognising that the point I sought to make in new Clause 8 was of a similar character to those just made by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell). I should like to explain to my right hon. Friend and to the House why I believe new Clause 8 has a certain value in its own right. I mentioned earlier that I was concerned that responsible life offices were making quotations for occupational pension schemes which require very low contributions, and which would still be compatible with the terms of the Bill.
We have to recognise that the reserve scheme itself is not a generous one. It would be true to call it a mean scheme, because this country has not got the savings habit. It may be that in Victorian times some classes had the savings habit, but many millions were too poor to save. Now, in the latter part of the twentieth century—the age of the common man— we have to encourage the entire population to embrace the savings habit which was the foundation of the wealth and success of the few in the last century. That has not yet happened, and the bulk of the employees who may find themselves in the reserve scheme or the occupational scheme will not be anxious for their contributions to be increased, even though it will be transparently obvious to them that their income on retirement would be correspondingly improved if they did. My right hon. Friend should not be discouraged if the reserve scheme cannot, by the nature of things—and by the nature of public opinion—be as generous as he and all Members on either side of the House would like. The National Insurance Scheme began miserably, too, and has grown into something which brings substantial benefits to millions in retirement, although we are not yet satisfied with that.
8.45 p.m.
At any rate, national insurance benefits in retirement are infinitely better than they were even between the wars and certainly better than the way national insurance began before the First World War. We expect it to be improving steadily, and it is subject now to an annual review. But we should make it clear that the reserve scheme is also to be a scheme which is improving constantly as people recognise more and more the wisdom of setting


aside money to provide them with a retirement income.
The reserve scheme is not an agency for the redistribution of income, as is the national insurance scheme. Therefore it would not be appropriate to try to institute an annual review. It would be much too complex a matter and so much would depend on it in the way of revision of the terms for occupational schemes that it would be a disastrous idea. But it would be helpful to include from the start a time table for the improvement of the reserve scheme, first because it would encourage people to look for a rising rate of saving and investment through retirement plans of various kinds and, secondly, and perhaps more important in the immediate context, because it would help employers recognise that the reserve scheme is not or should not be a soft option.
I know that my right hon. Friend is rightly afraid that employers who are not well disposed towards providing generous retirement benefits for their employees will wish to comply with the Act in such a way that it costs them the very minimum possible. I do not believe that employers will be able to get away with that, and it is up to the trade unions to make sure that they do not. But there is the risk that there will be short-sighted employers who see the scheme simply as a way of meeting the requirements of the Act grudgingly and costing them only very small contributions. We should make it clear that employers will be wrong to assume that the reserve scheme is a kind of bargain basement. It should be seen instead as an escalator. Employers who join it should realise that after the first five-yearly review their contributions are almost certain to be increased and that after the next five-yearly review they can be reasonably confident that they will be increased again.
There has been an assumption—and I believe that my right hon. Friend has had this feeling—that the reserve scheme is not readily capable of improvement and that because such a large scheme is likely to have millions of members it will not be possible for Parliament to improve it from time to time. That is not so. On the face of it the reserve scheme is more likely to be capable of improvement

than the great run of occupational schemes, many of which have complex provisions not only in terms of compatibility with this Bill but also from the tax angle.
There is also the question of the law affecting trusts, the law of perpetuities and the law of the amendment of trusts, which I do not understand but which is a vexatious subject for those who have become extreme specialists in the subject.
I hope and believe that the reserve scheme will be improved with the passage of time and probably transformed out of all recognition. There must be a parliamentary campaign for bigger contributions to the scheme and for bigger benefits in the scheme. I put the contributions first because, unless they go up first, the bigger benefits cannot come afterwards.
I hope that we shall hear from my right hon. Friend that he accepts the ideas that I have been putting forward in connection with my new clause. It has not been selected for a separate Division and therefore it would be wrong for me to prolong my remarks. However, I hope that I may have contributed to starting a campaign for a better reserve scheme and that my campaign will be welcomed by my right hon. Friend.

Sir K. Joseph: Both the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell) and my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington, South (Sir B. Rhys-Williams) share a desire to see that these schemes develop to their best potential. There is no doubt that we all—including the Government— want both the recognised occupational pensions scheme movement and the reserve scheme to have full publicity. The only reason why I am asking hon. Members not to press their amendments is that I am not sure that their methods are exactly suitable.
First, perhaps, I should deal with the underlying worry of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead about the vulnerable position of elderly members of recognised occupational pensions schemes. The right hon. Gentleman rightly drew attention to the relatively heavy cost of satisfying the minimum recognition benefits for members of the age of 50 and above, but he spoke as if there would be firms whose membership would be solely composed of above-average-age people. That


is, in theory, possible, but the presence in a staff of a proportion of people between 50 and 65 will normally—in most firms, not always—be balanced by a proportion of people between 20 and 30. It is, after all, the average cost for the employee that the employer will have to bear in mind in deciding whether to have a recognised occupational pensions scheme.

Mr. Dell: The right hon. Gentleman has missed the point. I recognise the fact that the Government have decided that they will make regulations covering this point so that older people in employment cannot be excluded from occupational pension schemes. My worry is not specific in respect of such persons. My worry is in respect of such persons who apply for employment, and in respect of whom the employer will realise that he will have to pay a very large percentage relative to what he is paying for other employees if he employs that man. That is the point.

Sir K. Joseph: In theory, that might be a worry. But after all, we have enough occupational pensions schemes in this country. They are not so widespread or of as high a quality as we would wish, but we have enough for this danger to emerged. There are a large number of firms who have good quality occupational pension schemes where there has been no whisper that their recruitment policy has damaged the elderly candidate.
Anyway, the right hon. Gentleman agrees that the Government have met his objection by undertaking in the Bill to make regulations to require the Occupational Pensions Board to see that no recognised scheme excludes people on age grounds in any unreasonable way. To that extent, therefore, he has expressed a limited degree of satisfaction.
He asked that the Government write into the Bill his new clause, which would impose upon the Government actuarially a number of obligations with the purpose of protecting the above-average-age members of recognised occupational pensions schemes. I must remind the House that by Government Amendment No. 79 there is already a requirement for an annual report by the Occupational Pensions Board. One would imagine that that would be a mine of information. It

will be laid before the House and published. Further, by Clause 72 there is to be an annual report by the Reserve Scheme Board, another mine of information that will be laid before the House and published.
There will be regular reviews of the reserve scheme by the Government Actuary on what I expect to be a three-yearly basis under Clause 71(6). There will be frequent reviews, not necessarily on a regular basis, of the occupational scheme movement by the Government Actuary in future as there have been in the past. There will thus be a regular flood of information coming before the House and the public. While it would be dangerous and wrong not to have enough information, it might be unsettling to have too regular an examination of the actuarial results. Hon. Members will appreciate that we have to get a balance.
Upon my assurance that there will certainly be reports from the Government Actuary on occupational pensions and that I and the Occupational Pensions Board will note the right hon. Gentleman's special interest in the elderly members of such schemes, I hope that he will not press his clause.
I turn to my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington, South, with whose hopes for the future I warmly associate myself in general. I ask him to recognise that there will be three-yearly reviews by the Government Actuary of the reserve scheme. His clause requires five-yearly reviews. To couple a cycle of five-yearly reviews with a cycle of three-yearly reviews would not achieve his purpose.

Sir B. Rhys Williams: It would have been better if I had said three-yearly reviews. I omitted to recollect that there was already a three-yearly timetable.

Sir K. Joseph: I am glad that we are for once ahead of my hon. Friend on the Bill. Under Clause 71(6) there is provision for a three-yearly timetable. While I found my hon. Friend's speech interesting, I hope that in the light of Clause 71(6) he will not press his clause.
I do not know whether I have persuaded my hon. Friend and the right hon. Gentleman not to press their clauses, but there will certainly be no lack of information.

Mr. George Cunningham: Both clauses relate to information about the reserve scheme and occupational schemes—the breakdown of contributions and so on.
I say sincerely and seriously to the Minister that he has not taken any oportunity to say something about what I am sure he realises was an unfortunate misstatement of fact on the contributions to the reserve scheme in relation to other schemes when he spoke in the Second Reading debate on 28th November. He knows the point to which I am referring. Surely it would be appropriate for him now to correct the mis-statement which he made on that occasion, I have no doubt unwittingly and by accident. It should not be allowed to stand on the record without further comment from the Minister.

Sir K. Joseph: I am not one to hug my mistakes to myself. If I have made them I acknowledge them. I am not aware of any wrong-doing. I may have used a slipshod expression and given a false impression which I should not like to leave uncorrected. Will the hon. Gentleman allow me during the rest of today and tomorrow to take a suitable opportunity to look at the point and, if I think it necessary and appropriate, to say something about it?

Mr. Cunningham: I have put down an early day motion on the Order Paper criticising the right hon. Gentleman on this point, having first given notice to his office that I would do so. He may have as much time as he likes. I cannot force him to make a statement, but it is odd for him to suggest that he is unaware of the criticism I am making when that criticism has appeared for weeks on the Order Paper. I shall not pursue it now.

Sir K. Joseph: My conscience was clear. I am afraid that I did not follow it up in great detail, but I will take the opportunity to do so now.

9.0 p.m.

Mr. Meacher: New Clause 6 requires the Government Actuary to report at two-yearly intervals with particular reference to the age composition of members of pension schemes. I listened carefully to what the Secretary of State said, and I acknowledge that there are annual reports from the Occupational Pensions

Board and the Reserve Pension Board and a three-yearly review from the Government Actuary. But no provision is made for special reference to older workers. He indicated that he would see that this information was made available. There is a grave need for information to be made available for older workers, for there is no doubt that as the Bill stands they are a group which clearly will do very badly along with women and low-paid workers.
We need a great deal more information than we have at present since the Occupational Pensions Board has considerable discretionary powers under Clauses 50, 55 and 57. We need information about the outcome of reviews under Clause 65, and reports on specimen cases to show the operation of the preservation provisions, which are particularly important for older workers. Above all, we need to know the level of pensions in payment and bonuses in operation. We need to know the number of occupational pensions schemes recognised in relation to the minimum conditions for recognition and the level of employers' and employees' contributions.
It is important to draw attention to the fact that flat-rate accrual schemes after the 1959 Boyd-Carpenter Act largely came about, I suspect, because insufficient attention was drawn to the way in which the provisions of that Act were being unsatisfactorily avoided. There is certainly a need for more information about the way in which older workers have their pension rights provided for. Secondly—this is why we are so concerned—employers, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell) said so forcefully, certainly have an incentive to and may well exclude older workers. After all, an employer can reduce the total contribution required to provide a minimum benefit, for example by excluding certain categories of workers at his discretion— either through a higher turnover so that the money accrues to occupational schemes because the preservation provisions are so bad, or by excluding older workers.
The reason why occupational scheme workers' benefits are better for 20 years than the benefits in the reserve scheme is seen if one looks at the answer which


the Government gave to a Question on 2nd March to the effect that the employer pays more for older workers and obviously has an incentive to escape the liability. If an employer were to exclude those over 55 years of age, the total contribution necessary to reduce minimum pension would be cut by 1 per cent. We need very much to know the employers' contribution levels and the investment policy of the scheme. This is something which should be written into the requirements for provision of information a great deal more precisely than at present.
In Committee the Under-Secretary informed us that this was unlikely to happen because such a scheme would not get recognition. He said later, rather less strongly, that there is little doubt that the board could be used to prevent such a practice because of recourse to regulations under Clause 52. When we looked at those regulations we saw that it was said that no regulations restricting the categories or descriptions of earners who may be included in or excluded from a survey are envisaged at present. That is a very significant statement. At the time the Under-Secretary made clear, that the document was purely consultative and, because it was consultative, in the nature of the case it was not final.
I would have thought it perfectly clear to any objective person looking at those regulations that the Department was at least prepared to put the interests of older workers very much at risk in saying that no such protection was envisaged at present. That was tantamount to saying that, unless pushed rather hard, that is how things will be left, which is rather worrying for older workers. It is relevant to point out that the Explanatory Memorandum dealing with the Crossman scheme explicitly forbade this kind of undesirable practice.
I turn to the situation regarding older workers and the reserve pension scheme. Older workers, women and the low-paid will do particularly badly under the scheme. There is no subsidy, as there is in occupational pension schemes. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birken-head has asked why the reserve pension scheme should be a money purchase scheme. The only indication that has been given by the Government is that the scheme has intermittent membership and lacks any common group identity. The

point is that although undoubtedly the membership will be partly intermittent, it is also true that many lower-paid workers, particularly women, will be in the reserve pension scheme all their lives.
Following the introduction of this Bill the older workers will do badly. We have it on the word of the Undersecretary that the reserve pension scheme gives value for money—a phrase which we have repeatedly had thrown at us. What it means is that, because of the absence of cross-subsidy, older workers— those over 45—will get extremely tiny pensions. Anyone who doubts this should look at those interesting figures in HANSARD on 1st March. They are derisorily small pensions for older workers at the start of the scheme. The Under-Secretary went on to say:
anyone who has gone half way through his working life without having had the opportunity to build up pension rights will get an inadequate pension unless it is subsidised by someone."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee E, 3rd April 1973; c. 1425.]
There we have it. It will not be subsidised by someone in the case of the older worker who was put in the reserve pension scheme when it came into operation. In the words of the Minister it will be an inadequate pension.
I come to those who will have had a chance in the early part of their life to build up pension rights and who may at a later stage find themselves in the reserve pension scheme. If we take account of the basic pension, and that is to be uprated in line with national average earnings, which is considerably better than mere price protection, and if we take into account the level of benefit that workers will receive in the reserve pension scheme, we have a picture of the two-tier pension, the second pension and the basic pension about which the Government have spoken so much.
We see then that a man earning slightly below average earnings, below £30 a week, will need 35 years of contributions to get above the supplementary benefit poverty line. If he is on £20 a week he will need 40 years to do so. That is a pretty clear indictment which shows how bad the reserve pension scheme is for older workers even if they have had a chance earlier in life to build up their entitlements within the scheme. From


the table in Schedule 18 one can see that many older workers will be even worse off than under the Boyd-Carpenter Act, which became universally known as a pension swindle. That Act gave 2½p for every £7·50 block of contributions. Under the Bill, according to the table a man of 60 would receive l·52p per £7·50, which is considerably worse than the Boyd-Carpenter formula. A man would need to be as young as 45 to get an accrual rate even as good as the Boyd-Carpenter scheme.
The reserve scheme offers a bonus. The bonus does not even guarantee price protection, so tt is not a particularly generous guarantee of a bonus. Therefore, although the figures would be improved they are unlikely to be improved significantly, and will probably not be better than the Boyd-Carpenter scheme. I can only conclude that for older workers, if the Boyd-Carpenter scheme was Swindle Mark I this scheme is Swindle Mark II.
What we have proposed is partly contained in Amendment No. 131, which was dealt with earlier, which proposed that there should be from the age of 40 onwards the same rate of accrual for every £1 of reckonable contributions. By comparison, in the occupational scheme the older worker does better, as the minimum accrual rate is independent of his contributions. The extra benefit for older workers in the occupational scheme comes from employers and younger employees. If this is true in the occupational scheme, why should it not be true in the reserve scheme?
It has been estimated that employers in occupational schemes have to pay about 1 per cent. more for persons over 45 than they have to pay for younger employees at minimum benefit level. Therefore, if there is a uniform age distribution in the reserve scheme what is needed is an extra 1 per cent. contribution over the whole scheme from all employees.
When we proposed that in Committee it was rejected. The reason was that it would uprate and improve the reserve scheme, and that the extent to which it did that it would make it more difficult for those marginal employers among whom the Government are so determined that they shall spread and advance

occupational pension schemes. That is why the reserve scheme is held back. If it were improved it would be more difficult to achieve the central goal of the Bill—to extend the occupational scheme.
One of the casualties of the ideological motive is older workers, who are at the heart of the amendment. I know that the Government are opposed to cross-subsidy in reserve schemes because of the intermittent membership. If so, why have they, in introducing a flat-rate basic pension in return for a fully earnings-related contribution, by that achieved a situation in which the higher-paid are automatically bound to subsidise the lower-paid?
I am fully in agreement with the principle. If the Government can do that for the basic pension, why can they not do it on the basis that there is the same lack of community of interest for those joined together in the basic pension as for those joined together in the reserve pension scheme? If it can be done for the one, it can be done for the other.
This does not help those lower-paid, young or old, in all the changes and improvements proposed for older workers. It is impossible to do that within this structure. This can be done only by the kind of redistributive dynamism which was achieved under the Crossman scheme under the 60/25 formula. I hope that I have made it perfectly clear that there are grounds for real and deep alarm about the position of older workers if we retain, as we are bound to do now, the reserve pension scheme and the occupational pension scheme within the present structure.
9.15 p.m.
The reason we intend to press the new clause is that it is not enough to say that a great deal of information is coming forward. We have had a fair amount of information from the Government Actuary before, but there has been little emphasis on older workers. Unless we receive a definite assurance that information about older workers will be made available as fully as the clause provides for, I shall recommend my right hon. and hon. Friends to press the clause to a Division, because we feel that the situation is so bad for older workers under the scheme.

Mr. Dell: To me, the most surprising element in the Secretary of State's reply was his statement that he was not aware of any employment difficulties for older workers arising out of the existence of occupational pension schemes. I should have thought that the best-known thing about such schemes was that they cause difficulties for older workers in securing employment, because of the cost to employers of the pensions that they eventually have to provide for those older workers. If the Secretary of State is ignorant of that, I can draw to his attention many cases of such difficulty that have come to me in my advice bureau, and cases that I know outside my constituency work.
I have reason to fear that the existence of this type of minimum benefit within the occupational pensions scheme will cause difficulties in securing employment for older people. The more conscious private employers have become of employment costs, the more the membership of the occupational pensions sector has

declined. Those figures are shown in the recent report of the Government Actuary.

The Secretary of State draws my attention to Government Amendment No. 79, requiring an annual report from the Occupational Pensions Board. He says that that should suffice, and that we do not need the clause. I hesitate to remind him that that amendment, again, follows an amendment that I moved in Committee. I shall welcome it, although I hope to move an amendment to it.

The clause is, in part at any rate, a device. It draws attention to the particular and difficult position in which older people will find themselves. Simply to register that point, if for no other reason, I hope that the House will support the clause.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time: —

The House divided: Ayes 169, Noes 194.

Division No. 124.]
AYES
[9.18 p.m.


Abse, Leo
Ellis, Tom
Leonard, Dick


Archer, peter (Rowley Regis)
English, Michael
Lipton, Marcus


Ashton, Joe
Ewing, Harry
Lomas, Kenneth


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Faulds, Andrew
Loughlin, Charles


Barnett, Joel (Heywood and Royton)
Fernyhough, Rt. Hn. E.
Lyon, Alexander W. (York)


Baxter, William
Fitch, Alan (Wigan)
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson


Beaney, Alan
Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)
McBride, Neil


Bishop, E. S.
Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
McElhone, Frank


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Foot, Michael
McGuire, Michael


Boardman, H. (Leigh)
Ford, Ben
Machin, George


Booth Albert
Galpern, Sir Myer
Mackintosh, John P.


Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur
Gilbert, Dr. John
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)


Broughton, Sir Alfred
Gourlay, Harry
McNamara, J. Kevin


Brown, Robert C. (Nc'tle-u-Tyne,W.)
Grant, George (Morpeth)
Marks, Kenneth


Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)
Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)
Marsden, F


Brown, Ronald(Shoreditch &amp; F'bury)
Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Marshall, Dr. Edmund


Buchan, Norman
Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)
Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy


Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)
Hardy, Peter
Meacher, Michael


Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert


Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)
Heffer, Eric S.
Mendeison, John


Carmichael, Neil
Horam, John
Millan, Bruce


Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)
Houghton Rt. Hn. Douglas
Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen)


Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara
Huckfield Leslie
Molloy, William


Clark, David (Colne Valley)
Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Morgan Elystan (Cardiganshire)


Cohen, Stanley
Hughes, Mark (Durham)
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)


Coleman, Donald
Muahea Robert (Aberdeen, N.)
Moyle, Roland


Concannon, J. D.
Hunter Adam
Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick


Conlan Bernard
Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)
Oakes, Gordon


Crawshaw, Richard
Janner, Greville
Ogden, Eric


Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
O'Halloran, Michael


Cunningham, G. (Islington, S.W.)
John, Brynmor
O'Malley, Brian


Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whitehaven)

Orbach, Maurice


Dalyell, Tarn
Johnson, Jemes (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)
Oswald, Thomas


Davidson, Arthur
Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)
Palmer, Arthur


Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)
Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)
Pardoe, John


Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)
Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)
Parker, John (Dagenham)


Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)
Jones, T. Alee (Rhondda, W.)
Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)


Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund
Judd, Frank
Pavitt, Laurie


Doig, Peter
Kaufman, Gerald
Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred


Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)
Kelley, Richard
Perry, Ernest G.


Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Kinnock, Neil
Prescott, John


Dunnett, Jack
Lamond, James
Probert, Arthur


Eadie, Alex
Lawson, George
Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)


Edwards, William (Merioneth)
Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Rhodes, Geoffrey




Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Stallard, A. W.
Walker, Harold (Doncasler)


Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy (Caernarvon)
Steel, David
Watkins, David


Robertson, John (Paisley)
Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John
Weitzman, David


Roderick, Caerwyn E.(Brc'n&amp; R'dnor)
Strang, Gavin
Wellbeloved, James


Rose Paul B.
Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley
White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)


Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)
Thomas, Rt. Hn. George (Cardiff, W.)
Whitlock, William


Short, Rt. Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)
Tinn, James
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)
Tomney, Frank
Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)


Sillars, James
Tope, Graham
Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)


Silverman, Julius
Torney, Tom
Woot, Robert


Skinner, Dennis
Tuck, Raphael



Small, William
Urwin, T. W.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Spearing, Nigel
Varley, Eric G.
Mr. James A. Dunn and


Spriggs, Leslie
Wainwright, Edwin
Mr. Joseph Harper.




NOES


Adley, Robert
Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)
Pike, Miss Mervyn


Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)
Hall, John (Wycombe)
Pink, R. Bonner


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch


Atkins, Humphrey
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Price, David (Eastieigh)


Awdry, Daniel
Hannam, John (Exeter)
Proudfoot, Wilfred


Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)
Hastings, Stephen
Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis


Balniel, Rt. Hn. Lord
Havers, Sir Michael
Quennell, Miss J. M.


Batsford, Brian
Hawkins, Paul
Raison, Timothy


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)
Hayhoe, Barney
Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James


Benyon, W.
Holland, Philip
Redmond, Robert


Berry, Hn. Anthony
Holt, Miss Mary
Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)


Biffen, John
Hordern, Peter
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Biggs-Davison, John
Hornby, Richard
Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David


Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)
Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)


Body, Richard
Hunt John
Roberts, Wyn (Conway)


Boscawen, Hn. Robert
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Rest, Peter


Bossom, Sir Clive
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Royle, Anthony


Bowden, Andrew
James David
Russell, Sir Ronald


Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher
Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh &amp; Whitby)


Bryan, Sir Paul
Jopling, Michael
Simeons, Charles


Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N&amp;M)
Joseph Rt, Hn. Sir Keith
Sinclair, Sir George


Buck, Antony 
Kaberry, Sir Donald
Skeet, T. H. H.


Butler Adam (Bosworth)
Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine
Smith, Dudley (W'wick &amp; L'mington)


Campbell, Rt. Hn.G. (Moray &amp; Nairn)
Kershaw, Anthony
Soref, Harold


Carlisle, Mark
Kimbail, Marcus
Speed, Keith


Cary, Sir Robert
King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Spence, John


Chapman, Sydney
Kinsey, J. R.
Sproat, lain


Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher
Knox, David
Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)


Chichester-Clark,R.
Lamont, Norman
Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh, W.)


Churchill, W. S.
Lane, David
Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.


Clark, William (Surrey, E.)
Langford-Holt, Sir John
Stuttaford, Dr. Tom


Cooleram Eric
Le Marchant, Spencer
Sutcliffe, John


Cooke, Robert
Lewis Kenneth (Rutland)
Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)


Cooper, A. E.
Loyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)
Taylor, Edward M.(G'gow,Cathcart)


Cordle, John




Cormack, Patrick
Longden, Sir Gilbert
Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)


Crltchley, Julian
Loveridge, John
Tebbit, Norman


Critchley, Julian
Luce, R. N.
Temple, John M.


Crowder, F. P.
MacArthur, Ian
Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret


d' Avigdor-Goldsmid, Maj.-Gen.Jack
McLaren, Martin
Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)


Dean, Paul
Macmillan.Rt.Hn.Maurice (Farnham)
Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.)


Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.




Digby, Simon Wingfield
McNair-Wilson, Michael
Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)


Dykes, Hugh
McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)
Tilney, John


Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)
Madel, David
Trafford, Dr. Anthony


Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)
Maude, Angus
Tugendhat, Christopher


Eyre, Reginald
Mawby, Ray
Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin


Farr John
Meyer, Sir Anthony
Vickers, Dame Joan


Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead)
Miscampbell, Norman
Waddington, David


Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)
Mitchell, Lt.-Col.C.(Aberdeenshire. W)
Walder, David (Clitheroe)


Fookes Miss Janet
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester)


Fortescue, Tim
Molyneaux, James
Wall, Patrick


Foster, Sir John
Monks, Mrs. Connie
Ward, Dame Irene


Fowler, Norman
Monro, Hector
Warren, Denneth


Fox, Marcus
Montgomery, Fergus
Weatherill, Bernard


Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (St'flord &amp;Stone)
More, Jasper
Wwlls, John (Maidstone)


Fry, Peter
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.
White, Roger (Gravesend)


Gibson-Watt, David
Morrison, Charles
Wiggin, Jerry



Mudd, David
Winterton, Nicholas


Glyn, Dr. Alan
Nabarro, Sir Gerald
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Goodhew, Victor
Neave, Airey
Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher


Gower, Raymond
Nicholls, Sir Harmar
Woodnutt, Mark


Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)
Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally
Worsley, Marcus


Gray, Hamish
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Younger, Hn. George


Green, Alan
Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)



Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)
Page, John (Harrow, W.)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Grylls, Michael
Parkinson, Cecil
Mr. Kenneth Clarke and


Gummer, J. Selwyn
Percival, Ian
Mr. Oscar Murton.

Question accordingly negatived.

New Clause 7

PROVISIONS AS TO BENEFITS IN CASES OF EARLY RETIREMENT

For an occupational pension scheme to be recognised in relation to an earner's employment it must provide that if a person who is a member of that scheme terminates his employment before the normal age of retirement in that employment there may, at the option of that person, be paid out of the funds of that scheme either—

(a) the sum of that person's contributions to the scheme plus the sum of the contributions which his employer would have paid to the reserve pension scheme in respect of his service, if he had been a member of that scheme during the appropriate period of his employment, or
(b) the actuarial value of his entitlement on the date of the termination of his service,
whichever is the greater, which payment shall be used for the purchase of a deferred annuity for the benefit of that person, the first payment of which shall fall due on the date on which he reaches the normal age of retirement in the employment he has terminated.—[Sir B. Rhys Williams.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Sir B. Rhys Williams: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
This is a subject on which I have frequently spoken both in Committee and in the House. Indeed, I made my maiden speech on this subject. Much of what I wish to say about the new clause may be found in HANSARD, in speeches that I have made in earlier years.
I take the view, which I think is generally accepted on both sides of the House, that a pension is a form of deferred pay. It is wrong that a man who changes his job before the normal age of retirement in his occupational pension scheme should lose his pension rights, as it were, retrospectively because he is not continuing in the employment in which those rights have started to build up.
It is obvious, and also generally accepted, I think, that transferability of pension rights is an ideal which we must seek to attain. Transferability has been provided in the public service. I therefore ask: why has it not been provided in this great structure Bill, reforming occupational pension schemes in the private sector?
We do not find transferability in the Bill. The proposal in the Bill is not even as satisfactory as the present situa-

tion, because the majority of schemes provide for a man who leaves a contributory pension scheme early to take his contributions out, so that at all events he has the protection of the ability to take away his own asset.
9.30 p.m.
What the Government propose—a proposal that I criticised severely on Second Reading—is that the man should lose the right to remove his contributions. In other words, the firm, with which he may have quarrelled when he left, can retain his pension rights and is able to get the capital gains and the income free of tax until the normal age of retirement from that scheme, which may be 30 years or more later. Then the only liability on the employer is to pay out in money values which have remained the same as they were on the day when the man left the firm. That is so unsatisfactory that I believe my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary agrees that an amendment is needed.
There are various ways in which this idea could be improved. I am not asking that the Bill should simply restore the present situation, because I have come to accept the force of the most persuasive argument of my hon. Friend the Undersecretary that the object of a pension scheme—which is a tax-protected and privileged scheme—is to provide benefits for retirement and not to provide interim benefits for a man who changes his job. withdraws his pension contributions and then, perhaps, uses them unwisely and not necessarily towards the purchase of an eventual pension entitlement, a deferred annuity.
We shall go some way, but only a very small way, towards transferability if we amend the Bill to allow a man to remove his contributions and use them for the purchase of a deferred annuity in one of the schemes which already exists or a similar scheme which might be set up in the future for this purpose—one often hears people speaking about the desirability of a clearing house for accrued pension rights—but a scheme which will continue to get the benefit of the tax provisions which have been introduced in order to encourage occupational pension schemes.
By choosing a well-managed company the employee who withdraws part of his


asset—that is, his contributions—from the first employer's trust may be able to make a satisfactory investment which will be reasonably proof against changes in the value of money.
The question then arises of the definition of the employer's contribution to the employee's pension rights during his years of service. How do we define the asset in terms which are sufficiently fair for people to accept that rough justice, at any rate, has been done? I recognise that there are scores of different types of scheme. It is very difficult to legislate in terms that will catch them all and provide reasonable justice for both sides. But the first-class advice that I have been given, and which I have sought to incorporate in the new clause, is near enough justice and would provide a satisfactory basis for an amendment of the Bill so as to take us at any rate as far as we need for the immediate present—to a half-way house between preservation and transferability.
The definition of the employee's asset in the trust is particularly difficult for young workers, because there are schemes which require the employer to put little or nothing into this trust on behalf of the younger workers, as from the actuarial point of view their own contributions are enough, or more than enough, to cover the trust's liability in their early years. The reserve scheme will provide a dynamised preserved pension including an employer's contribution for young early job changers. It is only 2½ per cent. of relevant earnings, so it is not very much. But at any rate an employee with a firm that has joined the reserve scheme and who changes jobs in his twenties, his thirties or even later will be certain eventually of receiving the benefit of his employer's contributions.
The spirit of the Bill requires that members of private schemes should do no worse than if they had been members of the reserve scheme. This really underlies all the provisions that are embodied in the Bill governing the recognition of occupational pension schemes set up by employers who do not choose to join the reserve scheme. In terms of preservation, occupational pension schemes should be no worse than the reserve scheme. It is easy to say that, because it is not very good, although—as I said

on an earlier amendment—I hope it will improve rapidly with the passage of time. So, in new Clause 7 I have suggested that the employee should get a contribution of at least 2½ per cent. over the relevant earnings for the appropriate period of his employment.
I recognise that if it were accepted by the Government this contribution would end what I call the virtuoso-controlled funding systems that have been adopted in recent years by firms that are perhaps sailing as close to the wind as actuaries will permit in allowing the employees' asset to grow in the trust when they are putting nothing towards it. I recognise that many actuaries will say that this is perfectly sound practice in final salary schemes, but others feel it would be no bad thing for the occupational pension movement if this type of funding principle were made virtually impossible.
If one early leaver is entitled to make a claim on the fund equal to 2½ per cent. of the reserve scheme contribution from the employer, it may be asked, what about all the others—early leavers who leave the following week, or those who decide to remain loyal to the firm and stay with it at a time of particular difficulty? One must not allow the people who leave to take more out than the value of the asset which remains behind for each of the others. This, of course, I accept. So, if the employers accepted the liability to pay out 2½ per cent. to those who leave, the fund would have to be large enough for at least 2½ per cent. as employers' contribution to be available to those who remained within the fund on top of the sum of their own contributions.
I am willing to accept that the employees' own contributions, and indeed the employers' own contributions, should not bear interest, because one has to reflect that in a good occupational pension scheme there will have been life cover for the employee while he was in service. It is easy to forget that an employee has been getting the benefit of life cover throughout years of service during which he has not had the ill fortune to die. Nevertheless, it has cost the scheme something to give him that, and therefore it makes a rough and ready balance with the interest which might have accrued on the contributions year by


year. However, in a general scheme the minimum contribution of 2½ per cent. which it would be necessary to put in for all employees and not only those likely to leave would be less than the altogether higher general payment to the trust.
So, for a good scheme what I suggest in new Clause 7 would not be onerous at all, and for a scheme run on rock-bottom lines I think it would be a sound safeguard which many actuaries would approve. Therefore, the first proviso in new Clause 7 is not very exacting.
What about the other provision—that the employee should be able to claim not less than the actuarial value? This, too, seems to be simply a question of justice. The definition of the actuarial value presents difficulties which I am assured have been solved by the Department in earlier essays on this subject. If they have been solved in the public sector, it need not take us too long to find an adequate definition of the actuarial value for the private sector.
It is part of the strategy of the Bill to give employees confidence in occupational schemes and to make them happy to belong to them. It is also part of the Government's policy to encourage people to make the most of their careers, which frequently means that a man, in pursuit of his own interest and that of his family, is right to change his job several times in his career. We must not continue to penalise, as we have done since the beginning of the occupational pension movement, the man who chooses to move about, in order to maximise his value to himself, his family, his firm and the community. It is necessary for the Government to act.
I do not blame the occupational pension movement, because this has not come about of itself. I have on earlier occasions sought to draw the attention of the House to the sometimes extreme difficulties which are put in the way of firms which would like to do better by such employees but are prevented from doing so by the rules of the Inland Revenue. Nevertheless, those regulations can be changed by Government.
What have the Government said their intentions are? In our manifesto for the 1970 election we said much the same as we said in previous elections and much the same as other parties have said in

their manifestos. The specific words were:
and we will ensure that everyone can take their pension rights with them when they change their job.
I do not interpret that as meaning that they can take back their own contributions to pension funds and forfeit what the employer might have put in. A formula has to be found, which can be seen to be fair, to cover employers' contributions as well.
The new clause would give the employee two options, of which he can take the most favourable to him. Is that loading the dice too much on the employee's side? If the sum of his own contributions and the employer's 2½ per cent. is more than the actuarial value, one might say that he was placing too heavy a burden on the employer. But, equally, we must recognise that actuarial value is not as generous as it might be.
In a final salary scheme, the employee's eventual asset if he stays in the scheme throughout his career is related to his salary at 65, which is probably his highest earnings. But if he leaves at 35, it is a reasonable expectation that he will have been earning much less; if the trustees of the scheme are entitled to calculate his asset on the basis of his earnings when he was 35, apart from any question of changes in money values during the rest of his career, which is another issue, it is likely that this factor in the calculation of the actuarial value will be highly adverse to the employee. So it is once again a question of roundabouts and swings. On balance, the advice that I have been given and which has gone into the making of the clause has come from a very perceptive analysis of the sort of circumstances that are likely to arise.
If my hon. Friend finds fault with the wording of a back-bench amendment, I hope that he will at any rate say that the Government are prepared to honour the forecast of their policy that they made in the manifesto and that something will be done which will give people the assurance of protection of their own contributions in some scheme which will give reasonable protection against changes in the value of money, and that the early leaver can make a reasonable claim on the trust of his first employer in respect of the employer's contributions as well.
I am confident that there is no question of insoluble problems. The difficulty that arises is whether this is the opportune moment to place an additional burden on employers. We must recognise that if the beneficiaries of occupational pension schemes are to gain from a provision like the new clause the money will have to come from somewhere—and it will, of course, have to come from employers.
One has to think carefully whether this might be inflationary, or might upset all kinds of checks and balances in the economy. But whether it does or not, I believe that the will of the House and the country demands that something should be done now about transferability of pension rights.

9.45 p.m.

Mr. Dell: I have thought it right to add my name to the new clause. I do so because I support the wording of the clause and the motives behind it.
The hon. Member for Kensington, South (Sir B. Rhys Williams) laid down as a principle that people in occupational pension schemes should in no case do worse than they would have done had they been in the reserve pension scheme. I find that a totally acceptable principle, indeed, so acceptable that I advocated it as frequently as I could in Committee. But on no occasion could I persuade the Government or the Committee to agree with me. There are in fact many occasions within this Bill, surprising though it may be, bad as the reserve pension scheme is, in which the reserve pension scheme will actually prove to be better than the occupational pension scheme. One of these is where a person's pension within the occupational pension system is subject to frequent preservation.
It will be true of many young people and even in certain cases of older people, if the rate of inflation increases. There are many circumstances in which people can actually do better within the pathetic reserve pension scheme than they would within the occupational pension system at minimum level. As the hon. Gentleman now states that principle to the House, I want to say at once that I agree that it is a principle relevant to this new clause.
Among my other reasons for supporting the new clause is that I believe trans-

ferability should be encouraged, not discouraged. The effect of this Bill is to discourage transferability. It discourages it because it writes into the Bill preservation at such low cost to the scheme that employers will be disinclined to move towards transferability because they will prefer to rely instead on the financial gains to the scheme which accrue to them from people leaving the scheme.
It has always been calculated that something like 15 per cent. to 20 per cent. of the cost of schemes is met by leaving members who get only the return of their own contributions. Preservation as laid down in this Bill will make very little difference to those figures. The Government claim that preservation is an advance. Of course it could be, but I doubt very much whether preservation as laid down within this Bill is in fact an advance. I believe that it could be a retreat and that it could be damaging to occupational pension schemes, even good ones, and even to good final salary schemes, because I believe that the acceptability of the occupational pension system has depended, in some part at any rate, on the fact that people could withdraw their contributions when they left an employment. When they went into an employment they were compelled to be a member of the occupational pension scheme run by the employer, but at any rate they knew that if they left they would have as a minimum the return of their own contribution, as I myself have experienced on more than one occasion when I have received a return of contribution on leaving an employment.
I say to the Government that it is only right to withdraw this facility of return of contributions if there is a good substitute. If there is a good substitute one can argue that substitute to the person who would prefer to have a return of his contribution. He can be shown that he will do better by the substitute than he would by return of contribution. But in this Bill return of contributions can continue to be better than preservation, even if the return of the contribution does not include the employer's share. As reported in col. 1270 of the Committee proceedings, I gave a specific example of where I believed return of contribution would be better for the individual than preservation under the Bill. I asked a Question of the Minister,


quoting that Question, I believe at c. 1269 of the Committee proceedings, showing in a particular example how preservation under the Bill could be inferior to return of contribution. It is not acceptable that people should be deprived of an established right unless something at least equivalent is put in its place—and nothing equivalent is put into its place in the Bill.
I am not saying that we should make this point about return of contributions an article of faith. I am prepared to see it withdrawn so that when they retire people shall not become dependent upon supplementary benefit, provided that there is a proper substitute. But there is no proper substitute in the Bill. Preservation can be a disincentive to the mobility of labour at a time when we want that mobility to be encouraged. People know how much they lose when they leave an employment. They will lose more under the Bill than they lose now and this is another unsatisfactory aspect.
Another reason why I support the clause is the Government's complete failure, in spite of the extended discussions on this point in Committee, to bring forward anything better than was in the Bill to begin with. We had assurance after assurance from the Minister about the consideration he would give to the arguments which were adduced in Committee. He said, for example,
I take the right hon. Gentleman's point —it was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington, South (Sir B. Rhys Williams) as well—that one of the effects of preservation to the minimum standards could be that some people would find their contributions locked in to their disadvantage, or they might be in the position where they would receive in their preservation a value less than the contributions they had paid. I recognise that this is an area which is not covered under existing arrangements.
In other words the Government recognise the very points I have presented to the House. He said,
I shall listen to what is said during the debate and will give consideration to the possibility of doing something to meet the case where the employee finds, or could find, that the benefits preserved to him are less than the contributions he has paid into the scheme.
Again the Under-Secretary, referring to one of his hon. Friends—I suspect the hon. Member for Kensington, South— said:

The other aspect which concerned my hon. Friend was to ensure that if this route should turn out to be inappropriate, we could find some way in which at least the contributions of people who had contributed to any type of scheme were guaranteed in some form in the event of their leaving the schemes. I should be willing to consider that possibility.
And again:
We shall consider the solutions in the light of the suggestions made by hon. and right hon. Members on both sides of the Committee, and I repeat the undertaking that I gave earlier today, namely to return to the House on Report with the Government's views on the best approach to the problem."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee E, 27th March 1973; c. 1276 and 1289–90.]
The House may consider that these are firm categorical assurances which the Minister gave but what do we find on the Order Paper? Nothing. The Government have sat on this egg and they have hatched absolutely nothing. We are left with the deplorable preservation conditions which are unacceptable in themselves and are a disincentive to what is in most cases, though not in all, the far better solution of transferability. It is for this reason that I support the new clause and I hope that the hon. Member for Kensington, South, if he does not get satisfactory replies from the Minister, wilt force the issue to a vote.

Mr. A. G. F. Hall-Davis: Although I have not had the benefit of listening to the Committee discussions I should like to say some-think on the new clause. I know how dedicated is my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington, South (Sir B. Rhys Williams) to improving all form of social benefit and I fully support him in focusing attention on the importance of transferability. Failure to cope with this problem by those responsible for occupational schemes and by previous Governments, has been one of the great and outstanding weaknesses of pensions. It has persisted for a deplorably long time.
The Government's proposals go considerably further than those put forward by the Opposition in the Bill they introduced in the closing days of the last Parliament. I welcome that advance. I should have liked to say that I felt that my hon. Friend had found the right solution, because he goes into these matters so thoroughly. I am afraid that I cannot say that about the new clause. The danger of moving too quickly in the area of transferability is that, strangely enough


perhaps, it will militate against the older man in favour of the younger man.
The younger man has a much better pension prospect ahead of him whether he is working for a company that has, or is likely to, institute an occupational scheme, or whether he will remain in the money purchase reserve scheme. I suppose that the greatest criticism of having to use a money purchase scheme as the fairest method of operating a State reserve scheme is that it is so beneficial to the younger man and it does not enable one to introduce the element of redistribution of pension entitlement, which was one of the strengths of the early days of an occupational scheme.
One cannot overlook the fact that all occupational schemes have a large element of pay-as-you-go in them. My feeling about the new clause that my hon. Friend has introduced is that it will hit the employer at both ends because the option that he is holding out will enable the younger man probably to take from the employer more than the employer felt would be created as his liability for that employee. It would certainly enable the older man to take in actuarial terms, or in cash terms, far more than the employer would have paid in for a late joiner to his company and would therefore, make the employer more reluctant to take an older man.
I feel that one has to be careful about introducing complicated options exercis-able by the employee. This may sound a controversial statement from someone who I hope is on record as supporting free choice in society, but I have had the opportunity of seeing time and time again an individual exercise the wrong option in the face of all the disinterested expert advice that one could put before him. I should be happier if there were no complicated option demanded from the individual to exercise.
I think the new clause could become a minimum that occupational schemes would provide. I think they should do far more, and pressures will undoubtedly make them do more shortly. I believe that it could act as a deterrent to the expansion and to the introduction of new occupational pension schemes. I do not think that the deterrent effect of inflation on the introduction and expansion of final salary pension schemes has yet been

fully felt. Firms which in good faith have introduced in recent years final salary pension schemes and have given, out of a sense of wanting to help long-service employees, generous back service entitlement, now find themselves, from the inflation of the last few years, with substantial liabilities resulting from the pace of inflation and the curve of earnings.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington, South, will forgive me on this occasion for not being able to support him—

It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

Ordered,
That the Social Security Bill may be proceeded with at this day's Sitting, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Murton.]

Question again proposed, That the clause be read a Second time.

Mr. Hall-Davis: I am sorry that I cannot support my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington, South but I hope that that will not discourage him and other hon. Members from pressing the Government to find the right solution. I congratulate my hon. Friend, who has such an outstanding technical command of the subject, on the progress that he has made. It was long overdue.

Mr. George Cunningham: The hon. Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Mr. Hall-Davis) suggested that it would be a disincentive if employers were required to make more appropriate provision for transferability and preservation. Surely it is also true that we impose a very severe disincentive on the free movement of labour if employees find it a big disadvantage to move from one job to another in less than five years. It is notorious that we ought to have more mobility of labour and that losing one's pension rights, or a significant part of them, is a very important deterrent to that mobility.
I did not hear the opening remarks of the hon. Member for Kensington, South (Sir B. Rhys Williams) but, in case he did not stress the point, I ought to remind hon. Members that the issue is very important for any individual involved in transferring from one job to another and that the number of such people is very large at present. The latest statistics show that in occupational pension


schemes there was a 10 per cent. turnover in the period covered by the Government Actuary's last report and that, of that turnover, no less than 70 per cent. made the transfer with less than five years' service and, therefore, in terms of the Bill, would not have been guaranteed full preservation of the benefits that they had accrued in service, although some may have enjoyed that preservation.
It is difficult to estimate what that is in terms of numbers in normal conditions as opposed to a period when membership of occupational schemes has been declining. My estimate in Committee was about 400,000 per year, and that will not be very far out. That means that a great many people will be discouraged from shifting jobs when they would otherwise wish to do so, due entirely to inadequate preservation of pension entitlement.

Mr. Albert Booth: I wish to support the clause because I believe that, in the absence of it or of some similar provision, employers may continue to use pension schemes quite wrongly for the purpose of retaining labour which would otherwise move, for very good and valid reasons, from job to job.
Anyone who has had the job of a trade union representative trying to negotiate improvements in pension schemes with employers who have bad records in respect of their provision for older employees will know that one of the greatest difficulties lies in securing anything like adequate transferability. In firms where employees depend on maintaining their jobs for the provision of reasonable pensions on retirement, they will hang on to their jobs, irrespective of the conditions, for the last few years of their employment. This cannot be a desirable situation to perpetuate in law. Also, we should recognise that what we call a free exercise of the option to leave one job for another is, in many cases, anything but a free choice for the person involved; that with the large number of technological changes taking place at the moment, and changes in the pattern of employment in certain areas, people are heavily influenced to move their jobs because of what happens not only in their own employment circumstances but

that of other immediate members of their families. For that reason, they decide to leave a job and find themselves, in the circumstances of many pension schemes, at a considerable disadvantage.
I would like to challenge the point made by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Mr. Hall-Davis) regarding the way in which an individual exercises his option in moving from one job to another. If this new clause were passed, there would be no question of the individual's making the wrong choice. He would be required by the terms of the new clause to take the better of the two provisions open to him.
For all those reasons, I support those who have spoken in favour of this new clause, and hope that the House will pass it this evening.

Mr. Dean: It is very appropriate that my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington, South (Sir B. Rhys Williams) should be introducing a debate on this subject this evening because for many years he has advocated improved arrangements for transferability of pension rights. Indeed, it is fair that the House should concede that my hon. Friend, in his advocacy and from his immense knowledge of this subject, over the years has done a great deal to inspire the progress in this field which is represented by this Bill. On the other hand, of course, my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Mr. Hall-Davis) sounded a note of caution as to how far one should go beyond what is already written into this Bill at the present time—and, given the inevitable limitation of the resources of employers, how much one should expect them to devote to the pension rights of the early leavers in contrast to the man or the woman nearer pension age.
The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell), in his intervention, was, if I may say so, less than his usual fair self because he condemned the Government before he had heard what the Government were proposing to do in this field. I hope he will feel more satisfied when I have had a chance to explain that.
Preservation of pension rights is something which has been talked about in this country for years, and very little has been done about it. Although it is fair to say that a great many pension schemes


now provide for preservation or transfer-ability, it is in many cases on a voluntary basis and the individual exercises the choice when he leaves. In a great many cases the choice that the individual has made has been to withdraw his own contribution from the pension scheme and to lose all benefit of the contributions paid by his employer, or from the investment of the fund. As a result we have the hole in the bottom of the bucket, the person building up pension rights in a job and then losing those pension rights, through his own choice in many cases, when he leaves. Later in his life, when he comes near to retirement, he may regret it.
Therefore, what we say in this Bill is that we have now reached a point at which pension rights should be regarded as deferred pay to which men or women are entitled in the same way as they are entitled to their monthly salary or their weekly wages. Therefore, when they leave their jobs there should be some provision for the preservation of those rights. That, in essence, is what this Bill provides for, and I hope the House will agree that this is a major advance on much current practice.
There are various ways in which this will be done in practice. The Bill lays down minimum standards which must be observed—in this case the preservation of pension rights. Many of us would prefer to go further towards transferability, but the House will probably agree that, at least at this stage in the advance of pension schemes, to compel transfer-ability would mean compelling some individuals, depending on the scheme they are in now and the scheme they are moving to, to a bad bargain. In its simplest terms that is the main reason why we have not gone as far as to compel transferability.
There is little doubt that every pension scheme—not only recognised schemes, but all schemes—will have to provide for the preservation of pension rights in one form or another. They will, therefore, have to consider how best to do it. Many will feel that transfer-ability of the full pension rights from the scheme that the person is leaving to the new scheme he is joining will be the most satisfactory way not only for the em-

ployee but for the employer. When people leave them many employers will be anxious to fulfill their obligations under the Bill and to get those men or women off their books rather than to keep them on their books and possibly to keep track of them for 20 or 30 years. In many cases, the decision will be made for transferability rather than for preservation.
Here, the public service is setting a good example, as it should, in that in public service schemes under certain conditions transferability will be available before the compulsory date laid down in the Bill.
Another way in which this obligation may be carried out is through the deferred annuity which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington, South. Here, too, in some cases this may be the most appropriate course both for the employee and the employer.
In discussing the various choices, the right hon. Member for Birkenhead said that he was doubtful whether transfer-ability would take place to any extent because of the comparatively cheap option he thought preservation would provide. When I come to tell the House what we propose, he will perhaps take a slightly different view. Whatever his view on that may be, I suggest to him that the very fact that employers will be anxious if they can to complete their obligations when a man or woman leaves them will be a powerful influence towards the transferability of pension rights where this can be appropriately done, as in many cases it can.
The Government are sympathetic to the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington, South that we should find a suitable way of ensuring at least a fair return on an employee's contributions when he leaves. That is the main argument that my hon. Friend put, and he has put it on many previous occasions. I freely concede that point to him and I shall in a few moments say how the Government propose to put it into practical operation.
My hon. Friend went on to say that there should also be some element of the employer's contribution. Here, one introduces a different concept which could cut across, the basis on which most schemes and the benefits they provide are


structured. There may also be, as I think my hon. Friend recognised, some undesirable practical results.
My hon. Friend the Member for More-cambe and Lonsdale drew attention to the common practice in occupational pension schemes to have a cross-subsidy between the generations within the scheme. My hon. Friend described it as redistribution of pension entitlement in occupational schemes. This is one of the desirable features of schemes.
I do not think my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington, South would wish to put occuational schemes and employers in a position in which they might have to make a choice between doing more for the early leaver and less for the full-term member. I suggest that there is a great deal of substance in the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for More-cambe and Lonsdale that there is a risk, if we put too many obligations on employers and schemes at this time, that it will be to the disadvantage of the full-term members and those nearing retirement age.
10.15 p.m.
One has also take into account that in the Bill not only are we for the first time putting an obligation on occupational schemes for preservation, but we are also putting on them new requirements as to the minimum level of pension to be provided in regard to widow cover and increases in the pension to take care of inflation. To meet the conditions laid down in the Bill the cost for many schemes will rise. The more we oblige them to incur additional costs to help the early leaver, the more difficult it will be for them to fulfil their obligations towards the full-term members and those nearing retirement age who should have the first command on the resources of the scheme.

Mr. O'Malley: If it is desirable, as I agree with the Under-Seoretary that it is, that there should be a cross-subsidy between the generations in occupational pensions schemes, would he care to explain to the House why it is undesirable that those not fortunate enough to be in an occupational scheme and who are forced into the reserve scheme should enjoy that same kind of cross-subsidy?

Mr. Dean: That is because the reserve pensions scheme is entirely different. The recognised occupational scheme or series of schemes is run by an employer for his employees. Therefore he can have a cross-subsidy within the arrangements. In the reserve pensions scheme there will be a large number of different employers contributing, many of them in competition with each other, and a large number of different employees contributing to the scheme. The only way to ensure value for money and an effective return for each individual in the reserve pensions scheme is by ensuring that there are not cross-subsidies and that the money purchase title arrangements are assured.
Having put the points which were put so effectively by my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale about obliging the employer in some way to make a contribution in this area, I go on to suggest the way in which the Government feel we can go further than is provided in the Bill at present. This, of course, was a matter which we discussed in Committee, and I undertook to return to it on Report with the Government's views on how best to approach the question of ensuring that members of contributory schemes were guaranteed in one way or another at least value for their contributions. One possibility I mentioned in Committee was a requirement for contributory schemes to give leaving members the option of a deferred annuity purchased with their contributions.
Another approach would be to place a direct legal obligation on scheme trustees and managers to take steps to ensure that members received value for their contributions on leaving, without necessarily specifying whether they need increase the level of benefits preserved by the scheme in an appropriate manner, or arrange for insurance contracts to be bought. It seems reasonable that schemes might be excluded from such a requirement if they already provided value for the member's contributions in one way or another.
Most money purchase schemes, for example, seem to fall into this category. There would be a strong prima facie case for excluding schemes which increased preserved benefits on an acceptable basis over the period between a member leaving and reaching pension age. I


should emphasise that this is a highly complex area in which we shall have to seek the views and advice of the Occupational Pensions Board. We shall need to make sure that any provision is sensible and workable. We must do all we can to ensure that employees are not worse off by having to accept a preserved pension worth less than a refund of their contributions. We are undertaking, under the powers in Schedule 14, to make suitable regulations which will cover this point.
I hope that the House will feel that we have gone some way to meet the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington, South made. I hope he will feel that we have gone a good way along the road he wishes us to move by at least ensuring that the value of an individual's contributions will be available to him in one form or another.

Sir B. Rhys Williams: Would my hon. Friend be so kind as to enlighten me? Does this mean that the Government's intention is to ensure that in no circumstances will the amount received by the man be less than the actuarial value of his assets in the fund?

Mr. Dean: Yes. My hon. Friend is broadly right. We shall ensure that in no circumstances will an individual receive less than the value of his own contributions. I give this assurance to my hon. Friend and to the House. I hope that the House will feel that with this firm commitment, which will be embodied in regulations, we have not only made a major advance in the preservation of pension rights but we have here one of the most important and far-reaching features in the Bill.
I am certain that, having laid down these minimum standards, we shall find in this area, as in others where the Bill lays down standards, that current practice will rapidly develop, and transfer-ability, where it is most appropriate, will grow following the good example now being set in the public service. I hope that the House will feel that this major advance, on which we are now proceeding somewhat further with the commitment I have given, is a satisfactory solution to the problem of preservation of pension rights which has been talked about for so long but on which so little action has been taken until now.

Mr. O'Malley: I am sure that privately the Under-Secretary cannot expect the House to be satisfied with the present preservation arrangements as set out in the Bill. It is disappointing that after the major discussions in Committee no new proposals have come forward. All that the hon. Gentleman has been able to say, if I may paraphrase his remarks, is, first of all, that there are a number of new requirements being made as a result of the Bill. That is true, although those new requirements do not take us very far.
Secondly, the hon. Gentleman said that there is a major advance on much current practice. The Bill brings us to the current practice, of which I should like to give an example—and a very unsatisfactory current practice it is. I have received a letter from a Mr. Richardson of King's Lynn, who expressed the wish that his case and his dispute with the National Westminster Bank should be used as an illustration in the debate. It is a very useful illustration. He writes:
I left the service of that bank, then the Westminster, 12 years ago and was told I had in cold storage a pension of £550 per annum to be drawn after I reached the age of 60. I do reach this age this year and have been in contact with that bank pointing out that inflation has in 12 years halved the purchasing power of the pension. In spite of record profits of £140 million last year, that bank has point-blank refused to do anything for me.
That is not untypical of the behaviour of employers, major and minor, when they are preserving pensions. What the Minister is doing is to perpetuate that kind of situation. The basic weakness of the preservation arrangements made in the Bill is that there is no provision for pre-award dynamism, although the Minister admitted to a delegation from the National Federation of Professional Workers that such pre-award dynamism was very important and desirable. The Government have persistently, throughout all the discussions on the Bill, refused to introduce the concept into the preservation arrangements.
The second thing the Government have failed to do, in spite of the debate in Committee, is to make firm proposals, which they should have been introducing and not leaving to the Occupational Pensions Board, about the future of clearing house arrangements. As a number of us

pointed out in Committee, there could well be people retiring half a century and more into the future who will have bits of non-dynamised preserved pensions scattered all over the country, with no adequate administrative arrangements to see that those payments are made or that the beneficiaries are traced, and certainly no arrangements for any investment of the deferred income of those beneficiaries to be used to provide an income to give some protection against the inflation about which the writer of the letter I have quoted has complained.
The second comment I must make on the general question of preservation is that although hon. Members on both sides raised the matter of the early leaver the Government have done nothing to change the five-year qualification terms for a preserved pension. The National Union of Journalists lobbied Opposition Members, and I assume that it also lobbied Conservative Members, including Ministers, pointing out that its profession was not entirely untypical of many other professions in which if young men were to make a future for themselves they would work for perhaps 12 months, 18 months or two years for one employer and then move on to another. That must be the situation in many other professions, occupations and industries.
Although we raised the matter with the Under-Secretary, nothing has been done to make the preservation arrangements more flexible to deal with the needs of such categories. The Government have done nothing to ease their passage into the reserve pension scheme. As the scheme is a money purchase scheme, the value of the pension eventually paid out depends not only on the amount of money paid into the scheme but on the age of the person concerned at the time specific sums are paid in and on the year in which such sums are paid in. It can be the case and it will be the case that quite large numbers of people who move after a couple of years, for example, in one job to another job in seeking promotion, with the ex-employer having no responsibility to provide a reserve pension and having to make no arrangements for transferability, will make payments into the State reserve pension scheme. As it is a money purchase scheme, such categories will have


a reduced pension because their contributions are being put in at a later date.
10.30 p.m.
It is inevitable, because the preservation requirements put forward by the Government are unsatisfactory, and in a mess which could have been resolved had the Government been prepared to consider the situation between Committee stage and Report stage, that we are obliged to consider any proposal or any new clause or amendment which would seek to give a greater degree of equitable treatment to the categories which I have mentioned or to improve the preservation arrangements and the facilities open to individuals to build up for themselves reasonable pension rights.
I must tell the hon. Member for Kensington, South (Sir B. Rhys Williams) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell) that I have some reservations about the formula which they have adopted. For example, if an employer is making a contribution of 5 per cent. to an occupational pension scheme-that should be regarded as deferred pay. The employer should not have an obligation to pay back to his ex-employee his contributions minus tax plus 25 per cent. rather than 5 per cent. or 6 per cent.—

Sir B. Rhys Williams: Sir B. Rhys Williams rose—

Mr. O'Malley: That is part of the deferred pay of that ex-employee.

Sir B. Rhys Williams: I think that the hon. Gentleman has not fully read the new clause. It is intended that the employee, in the event of his exercising his option to take out the assets from the fund to purchase an annuity, should be given the actuarial value of his entitlement if that were the greater. That would cover the point which the hon. Gentleman is making.

Mr. O'Malley: That may or may not cover the point. It could do so in the generality of circumstances. I have read the new clause and there is no guarantee that that would be the case. It is a sorry reflection on the structure being put forward by the Government that we must depend on individuals purchasing deferred annuities to provide decent pensions for themselves and for their families in retire-

ment. How much better were the comprehensive proposals put forward by the last Labour Government, which not only provided complete transferability for anyone who was paying into the State scheme but gave benefits of a magnitude and of a type which are unparalleled in the legislation which we are now considering
I express reservations about the new clause because of the entirely unsatisfactory nature of the preservation arrangements. My reservations are expressed only in that context. I recommend to my right hon. and hon Friends that if the two hon. Members who put down the new clause wish to put it to a Division on the basis that the present preservation arrangements are extremely unsatisfactory, they should vote for it merely to reflect their dissatisfaction with the arrangements.

Mr. Marks: The Under-Secretary's reply confirmed my view that the hon. Member for Kensington, South (Sir B. Rhys Williams) was being naive when he quoted the Conservative Party's manifesto for 1970. To the hon. Gentleman, to myself, and to most people interested, the words,
And we will ensure that everyone can take their pension rights with them when they change their job",
meant transferability, and that we have not got.
The hon. Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Mr. Hall-Davis) said that there are more provisions for transferability of private pensions in this Bill than in the 1970 Bill. Of course there are. We had no need to worry about the private occupational pension schemes in the 1970 Bill, because there was a substantial National Superannuation Bill with full transferability, and many of the private and public service schemes were to reduce contributions and benefits, so that they were topping up the main scheme.
The contributions to private schemes made by employees and employers are, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rother-ham (Mr. O'Malley) said, deferred wages. Not only the contributions made by employees, but those made by employers, are deferred wages, and they are taken into consideration when negotiations take place.
Transferability rights written into the Government's scheme are now written into public service schemes. If the private schemes are as good as we are led to believe, they ought to be written into them, too. I am sure that if the Government had said in the White Paper that transferability was necessary for acceptance by the board, the companies would have found some way of doing it.
The whole purpose of the Bill is not to provide adequate pensions, but, as the Under-Secretary said, to maximise occupational pension schemes. We have not got transferability because of the opposition of private pensions interests. We have not even got what the hon. Member for Kensington, South is asking for.
In January the National Association of Pensions Funds, despite pleas from some on its platform that the kind of thing for which the hon. Gentleman is asking was not possible, overwhelmingly voted in favour of such a scheme. I urge right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House to support the new clause.

Sir B. Rhys Williams: I hope to deal briefly, but fairly, with the points that have been made.
First, I should like to thank right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House for the way that they have dealt with the new clause and for some of the pleasant remarks they have made about my efforts, which I am sure I do not deserve.
I hope that the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. O'Malley) did not think that I intended any discourtesy when I said that he had not fully taken in the implications of the new clause. It would be premature to suggest that employees should be entitled in certain circumstances to take out more than their contributions, plus the minimum contributions that their employers might have made to the reserve scheme, and more even than the actuarial value of their own asset in the scheme. I should be chary about inviting the House to go so far as the hon. Gentleman suggested. However, he was kind enough to welcome the new clause and to suggest that right hon. and hon. Members on both sides should support it. Therefore, I appreciate the general tenor of his remarks.
My hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Mr. Hall-Davis) made three or four serious points. He said that the Bill went further than the Crossman Bill. It goes further than that Bill when it began, but I recall that the long Committee stage, in which my hon. Friend played a notable part, ended with the Secretary of State accepting an amendment of mine, if my memory is right, which, unless I am much mistaken, meant that at the time that it died the Crossman Bill conferred transferability of pension rights. This little nugget of gold that went down with the coffin into the deep when the Bill was lost I have been unable to dredge up again, but I live in hope.
My hon. Friend felt that there was a danger that a provision of the kind that I am suggesting would militate against the older man. I tried to show how it would be necessary for schemes to accommodate their funding methods to the implications in the new clause, but that it would not place a heavy burden on employers. I do not think that the young who leave, whom my hon. Friend felt would be getting an advantage, would be getting such a serious advantage in many schemes if they got only 2½ per cent. from their employers' contributions, bearing in mind that in many sound occupational pension schemes the employer will be putting in an average of 10 per cent. or even 15 per cent. on top of the employee's contribution of perhaps 5 per cent. A minimum overriding obligation for employers to pay out 2½ per cent. is not a very frightening commitment.
Concerning the other horn of the option, if my hon. Friend is grumbling that the young employees who take out their actuarial rights would be robbing the scheme, he must be thinking of schemes which are not fully funded. My hon. Friend would not like to be known as the friend of the unfunded schemes. I hope that he will reconsider the points he was making.
Concerning the question of requiring employees to make a complicated option, I quite appreciate the danger; but that was not my intention and it would not be the effect of the new clause. The option which the employee would exercise, as I understand it from the words on the


Notice Paper, is that of asking the trustees to purchase him a deferred annuity. The way in which they valued his asset would not be at the employee's option nor, indeed, at the trustees' option. They would have to buy for him a deferred annuity on whichever terms were the greater by the two methods of calculation.
My hon. Friend also said that a clause of this kind would have a deterrent effect on occupational pension schemes. Nothing has happened since 1970, when we thought that transferability was right, to change the situation. If occupational pension schemes cannot introduce even this limited degree of protection—or will not do it—that is about the worst thing that we have heard concerning such schemes.
I was grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for his remarks. I understand his reasons for caution. Certainly one wants to be cautious in making provisions which will affect many millions of people in regard to assets which are of great value. My hon. Friend the Minister is right in saying that preservation of pension rights is something which has been talked about for many years. But it has been talked about for many years too long. The time must come very soon when something is done about it.
The Bill requires some preservation in that it prevents employees from taking out their own contributions in future. It would not be right to suggest that every employee who takes out his contributions is a reckless fool. It may well be that he is taking out his contributions in order to find the deposit for a new house, which probably would he his most precious asset when he eventually retires. He certainly would not have lost the value of his contributions for his retirement in that case.
I pressed the Minister to say whether, by the provisions for protection which the Government intend to introduce into the Bill at a later stage, the actuarial value of the employee's asset would be protected, and his reply seems to be very much, "Yes, we have no bananas". Yes, it was the Government's intention; but, no, that would not be the actual effect of what the Government intended to do. In fact, all that the Government

intended to do was to give the trustees, who do not like keeping little fiddly bits of preserved pension on their books because of the cost, which is undeniable, a way of clearing them off and saying goodbye to the unsatisfactory early leaver.
By his reply, my hon. Friend the Minister has not met my point. He made two other points, that the new clause might mean that the trustees would have to make a choice between doing more for the early leaver than for the older man, which might be to the disadvantage of the full-time member; and that it would be putting new requirements on employers. That is true. As I tried to explain in introducing the new clause, if one changes the law to the advantage of the beneficiaries, one is putting new burdens on someone. It would not be possible for employers altogether to shake off that burden. If they tried to do it, it could be that the older men would suffer. I believe that that would not be possible under the particular terms of the new clause, though it would be a matter possibly requiring further consideration. The extra burden that the new clause would place on employers is a relatively small one. We said that we would do it. Now is the time to do it.
I have one or two further points to mention so that right hon. and hon. Members can perhaps see this proposal in focus. By the time a man has reached mid-career in the sort of occupational pension scheme which most people would regard as reasonably satisfactory, his asset in the scheme is likely to be worth considerably more than his house. To lose that when one changes one's job is a more serious matter than many people realise until they have lost their rights and it is too late. I know, too, from years of experience in personnel selection work that the fear of loss of pension rights seriously restricts job movement among senior men. If we do not do something about this, we are not acting in the national interest so far as industry is concerned.
Most employers want something to be done about protection of pension rights, because a more fluid labour market is to the advantage of the active employer who wants to expand and recruit good men with useful experience. Employers have been hampered for years by the iniquitous


"mixed benefits" rule applied by the Inland Revenue, and I believe that they would seriously like the Government to grasp this nettle.
The administrative cost of keeping little fiddly bits of preserved pension, as originally suggested in the Bill, is a serious potential burden for employers which they cannot want. Therefore, I believe that the House would be right to adopt something on the lines of the new clause. We would then be sending the Bill for

consideration in another place with our own best idea of how transferability should be approached. I believe it would help the noble contributors to that debate to have something specific to chew on. I shall therefore ask the House to support me in pressing the new clause.

Question put, That the clause be read a second time:—

The House divided: Ayes 162, Noes 168.

Division No. 125.]
AYES
[10.47 p.m.


Abse, Leo
Gourlay, Harry
Oakes, Gordon


Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)
Grant, George (Morpeth)
Ogden, Eric


Ashton, Joe
Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)
O'Halloran, Michael


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.
O'Malley, Brian


Barnett, Joel (Heywood and Royton)
Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Orbach, Maurice


Baxter, William
Hardy, Peter
Oswald, Thomas


Bishop, E. S.
Harpar, Joseph
Palmer, Arthur


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Pardoe, John


Boardman, H. (Leigh)
Heffer, Eric S.
Parker, John (Dagenham)


Booth, Albert
Holt, Miss Mary
Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)


Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur
Horam, John
Pavitt, Laurie


Bradley, Tom
Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred


Brown, Robert C. (N'c'tle-u-Tyne,W.)
Huckfield, Leslie
Perry,Ernest G.


Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)
Hughes, Mark (Durham)
Prescott, John


Brown, Ronald(Shoreditch &amp; F'bury)
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)
Probert, Arthur


Buchan, Norman
Hunter, Adem
Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)


Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)
Janner, Greville
Rhodes, Geoffrey


Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
John, Brynmor
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)
Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)
Roberts, Rt.Hn.Goronwy (Caernarvon)


Cant, R.B.
Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)
Robertson, John (Paisley)


Carmichael, Neil
Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)
Roderick, Caerwyn E.(Brc'n&amp;R'dnor)


Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)
Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)
Rose, Paul B.


Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara
Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.)
Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)


Clark, David (Colne Valley)
Judd, Frank
Short, Rt. Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)


Cohen, Stanley
Kaufman, Gerald
Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)


Coleman, Donald
Kinnock, Neil
Silverman, Julius


Concannon, J. D.
Kinnock, Neil
Skinner, Dennis


Conlan, Bernard
Lamond, James
Small, William


Crawshaw, Richard
Lawson, George
small, William


Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Leonard, Dick
Spearing, Nigel


Cunningham, G. (Islington, S.W.)
Lestor, Miss Joan
Spriggs, Leslie


Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whitehaven)
Lipton, Marcus
Steel, David


Dalyell, Tam
Lomas, Kenneth
Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John


Davidson, Arthur
Loughlin, Charles
Strang, Gavin


Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)
Lyon, Alexander W. (York)
Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley


Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)
Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)
Thomas, Rt. Hn. George (Cardiff,W.)


Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Tinn, James


Doig, Peter
McBride, Neil
Tope, Graham


Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)
McEihone, Frank
Torney, Tom


Douglas-Mann, Bruce
McGuire, Michael
Urwin, T. W.


Duffy, A. E. P.
Machin, George
Varley, Eric G.


Dunn, James A.
Mackintosh, John P.
Walnwright, Edwin


Dunnett, Jack
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)
Walker, Harold Doncaster)


Eadie, Alex
McNamara, J Kevin
Watkins, David


Edwards, William (Merioneth)
Marks, Kenneth
Weitzman, David


Ellis, Tom
Marsden, F.
Wellbeloved, James


English, Michael
Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy
White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)


Ewing, Harry
Meacher, Michael
Whitehead, Phillip


Faulds, Andrew
Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


Fernyhough, Rt. Hn. E.
Mendelson, John
Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)


Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Millan, Bruce
Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)


Foot, Michael
Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen)
Woof, Robert


Ford, Ben
Molloy, William



Forrester, John
Monks, Mrs. Connie
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Galpern, Sir Myer
Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)
Mr. Brandon Rhys-Williams


Gilbert, Dr. John
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Mr. Edmund Dell




NOES


Adley, Robert
Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)
Biffen, John


Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)
Bainiel, Rt. Hn. Lord
Biggs-Davison, John


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)
Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)


Atkins, Humphrey
Benyon, W.
Bossom, Sir Clive


Awdry, Daniel
Berry, Hn. Anthony
Bowden, Andrew




Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher
Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia
Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis


Bruce-Gardyne, J.
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Raison, Timothy


Bryan, Sir Paul
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Redmond, Robert


Buchanan-Smith, Alick(Angus,N&amp;M)
James, David
Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)


Buck, Antony
Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)
Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David


Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
Jopling, Michael
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)


Campbell, Rt. Hn. G. (Moray &amp; Nairn)
Kaberry, Sir Donald
Roberts, Wyn (Conway)


Carlisle, Mark
Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine
Rost, Peter


Chapman, Sydney
Kershaw, Anthony
Royle, Anthony


Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher
Kimball, Marcus
Russell, Sir Ronald


Chichester-Clark, R.
King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh &amp; Whitby)


Churchill, W. S.
King, Tom (Bridgwater)
Sinclair, Sir George


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushclifle)
Kinsey, J. R.
Skeet, T. H. H.


Cockeram, Eric
Knox, David
Soref, Harold


Cooke, Robert
Lamont, Norman
Speed, Keith


Cordle, John
Lane, David
Sproat, lain


Cormack, Patrick
Langford-Holt, Sir John
Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.


Critchley, Julian
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Stuttaford, Dr. Tom


Crowder, F. P
Loveridge, John
Sutcliffe, John


d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Maj.-Gen. Jack
MacArthur, Ian
Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)


Dean, Paul
McLaren, Martin
Taylor, Edward M.(Ggow,Cathcart)


Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.
Macmillan, Rt. Hn. Maurice (Farnham)
Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)


Digby, Simon Wingfield
McNair-Wilson, Michael
Tebbit, Norman


Elliott, R. W. (N c'tle-upon-Tyne,N.)
McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)
Temple, John M.


Eyre, Reginald
Madel, David
Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)


Farr, John
Maude, Angus
Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.)


Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)
Mawby, Ray
Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)


Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Meyer, Sir Anthony
Trafford, Dr. Anthony


Fortescue, Tim
Miscampbell, Norman
Tugendhat, Christopher


Foster, Sir John
Mitchell, Lt.-Col. C. (Aberdeenshire,W)
Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin


Fowler, Norman
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Vickers, Dame Joan


Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (St'fford &amp; Stone) 
Monro, Hector
Waddington, David


Fry, Peter
Montgomery, Fergus
Walder, David (Clitheroe)


Gibson-Watt, David
More, Jasper
Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester)


Goodhew, Victor
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.
Wall, Patrick


Gower, Raymond
Morrison, Charles
Ward, Dame Irene


Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)
Mudd, David
Warren, Kenneth


Gray, Hamish
Murton, Oscar
Weatherill, Bernard


Green, Alan
Nabarro, Sir Gerald
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)
Neave, Airey
White, Roger (Gravesend)


Grylls, Michael
Nicholls, Sir Harmar
Wiggin, Jerry


Gummer, J. Selwyn
Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally
Wilkinson, John


Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)
Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)
Winterton, Nicholas


Hall, John (Wycombe)
Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Page, John (Harrow, W.)
Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher


Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Parkinson, Cecil
Woodnult, Mark


Hannam, John (Exeter)
Percival, Ian
Worsley, Marcus


Hastings, Stephen
Pike, Miss Mervyn
Younger, Hn. George


Havers, Michael
Pink, R. Bonner



Hayhoe, Barney
Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Hiley, Joseph
Price, David (Eastleigh)
Mr Marcus Fox and


Hordern, Peter
Proudfoot, Wilfred
Mr. Paul Hawkins.


Hornby, Richard

Question accordingly negatived.

New Clause 9

INVALID CARE ALLOWANCE

(1) A person shall be entitled to an invalid care allowance if he satisfies prescribed conditions as to residence or presence in Great Britain and has been obliged to give UD his employment and continues to be unable to take up employment because he has to care for an elderly or infirm person with whom he resides at the time of giving up employment and has so resided for a minimum uninterrupted period of six months immediately preceding giving up employment; and the weekly rate of the invalid care allowance shall be at the curent basic rate payable as unemployment benefit so long as he satisfies the pre scribed conditions.

(2) Schedule 7 Part III which relates to the powers of the Attendance Allowance Board with regard to determination of ques-

tions arising in connection with claims for the attendance allowance and to reviews of determination and appeals therefrom shall apply with regard to claims for the invalid care allowance.

(3) During such period as the invalid care allowance is payable to a person he shall be credited with Class 1 contributions.—[Mrs. Joyce Butler.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mrs. Joyce Butler: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Although the clause is fairly long, it is straightforward and does not need very much explanation. Its aim is to base what is called an invalid care allowance largely on the lines of the attendance allowance for the severely disabled. It is aimed at providing some security for those who give up employment to care


for elderly or infirm relatives. Those who do so are usually women, though not always, and very often they are single women who are totally dependent on outside employment for their livelihood.
I stress that my concern is not confined to women. There are some men who have to do this in order to care for elderly or infirm relatives. I shall concentrate my remarks almost entirely upon the position of women, but I hope that some of my hon. Friends will cover the wider area.
Too often, women are the forgotten people of the community. The estimate is that there are well over 300,000 single women who have elderly or infirm dependants at home. Many of these women can and do continue to work outside the home for a considerable time, although their position becomes increasingly strained as they try to do the double job of caring for their elderly or infirm dependents and doing their jobs outside the home. But the position becomes quite impossible when, as so often happens, the elderly relative gets progressively worse and the single woman is forced to give up employment to care properly for that elderly relative.
The period of having to leave paid employment in order to do this may go for a long time. It may be as much as 20 or 30 years, and it is a great sacrifice on the part of the person concerned. At present, there is no kind of benefit which she can claim as of right to replace the earnings that she gives up. She may be able to claim means-tested benefit. In 1970 about 8,000 single women with old or sick relatives received supplementary benefit in this way. The numbers are not large, and we have to remember that everyone who benefits from the allowance provided in the clause automatically relieves the community of the expense of caring in some other way for the infirm or elderly relative.
11.0 p.m.
Many people who look after infirm or elderly relatives are the most deserving people in the community. That is why I am grateful, as a newcomer to the debates on the Bill, to have this opportunity of putting their case to the House. These people practise the compassion and care which we so often talk about. They are saving the community a vast amount

of money, and they are shabbily treated. One of them wrote to the National Council for the Single Woman and her Dependants in these terms:
For some long time I have said my piece about the unfairness to daughters who give up careers to care for parents especially when they have to pay the full rate for national health insurance stamps and are taxed on the money saved and now on their pensions. I gave up my career and did just this for 30 years, by which time I was too old to return to a full-time job, but I would do exactly the same again for the joy of knowing my parents were happy in their ageing years. I support your efforts in the hope that any daughter caring for her dependants in future will be free of money worries, if only for the amount she saves the country in hospitalisation and the joy of knowing the old are happy.
Many people would echo those sentiments, but what are we doing about it in a practical way?
Those who undertake this service should have a monetary payment as of right, and that is the object of subsection (1). Not only does the immediate financial problem of women in this situation need to be covered, but there is the fact that their retirement may be in jeopardy.
I understand that assurances have been given to the National Council for the Single Woman and her Dependants that the cost of the class III insurance stamp will continue to be claimable as an additional discretionary supplementary benefit. The maintenance of these payments gives an entitlement only to the flat-rate State retirement pension. To many single women savings are particularly important. They often have a little nest egg and cannot claim supplementary benefit because their savings are too large to be disregarded for benefit. When that happens they cease to make insurance contributions because they cannot afford to do so. So their entitlement to the flat-rate State pension is at risk if they have not achieved enough contributions to qualify.
I have here a letter from a single woman of 43 who had to give up work nearly 15 years ago to care for her mother. She was exempted from insurance contributions and was told that this would be all right so long as she started paying again 10 years before her pension was due. She has now learned otherwise and has been informed that she will lose a lot of benefit through not making


insurance contributions for all these years. She is living on social security of £6·50 a week and her mother's pension of £8.15. She writes:
I am afraid I do not feel I can afford a stamp each week out of this income.
So this lady is one of the people who will lose out because she cannot keep up her insurance contributions. Another lady retired last December. She has only £5.45 pension plus whatever social security will allow her because she lost several years' contributions when she gave up work to care for her elderly father.
These are typical of a whole host of cases of this kind where women have been suffering in this way. We also have to bear in mind that, by giving up work, the single woman's contributions to the occupational scheme, if there is such a scheme, where she worked, or to the reserve scheme, will cease, so that again her expectations of pension may be substantially reduced, if not entirely lost.
Again, her entitlement to sickness and unemployment benefit—particularly important to the single woman—will cease if she stays at home for long periods and ceases to make class I contributions. So subsection (3) of the new clause provides for anyone receiving the proposed invalid care allowance to be credited with class I contributions in order to preserve her entitlement to the fullest possible benefits. Amendment No. 146 is consequential.
The National Council for the Single Woman and her Dependants, which has been campaigning strongly on behalf of these women for a considerable time, has received shoals of letters and many personal calls from women who are worried sick about their present financial position and what is going to happen to them in the future.
I think we are a nation of hypocrites in our attitude to the home care of the elderly. We continually bemoan the fact that younger people do not shoulder the burden of caring for elderly parents at home—and it can be a considerable burden—but when they do it we leave them to struggle with what are sometimes nearly intolerable conditions with a very sick person, without giving them the

security to which what they are doing entitles them.
Then, on top of all that, when perhaps the parent has died and the single woman is left on her own and becomes elderly in turn, she suffers in the amount of pension she can draw, because again we have not provided adequately for her pension requirements.
New Clause 9 is an attempt to meet that need—to give these women a very small amount of security while they are caring for the invalid, and some better security when they themselves retire. Because of this, and because they are such a small and such a deserving group, I hope that the House will support new Clause 9.

Mr. Marcus Worsley: I wish to support what the hon. Lady the Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Joyce Butler) said. The case she has outlined constitutes one of the major gaps in our social provision. In subsequent debates on Report we shall no doubt cover others. The hon. Lady did right to bring this case forward and to speak of the work done by the organisation she mentioned.
Like the other gaps in our social provision, the difficulty is that people in this situation are so often forced on to supplementary benefit and therefore have to give up work. A single person— usually it is a single woman who is concerned—ought to be helped if possible to continue at least in part-time employment to help the finances of the family. It is just as important to help her to get out into the community to see a bit of life and keep her self-respect and her ability to earn her living when the relative she has been helping dies.
Often she can work part time because the relative can go to a day centre. The one in my constituency does a first-class job, helping the younger relative to get out not only to do shopping but to do part-time work. In the present position it is extraordinarily difficult for the single woman to do a part-time job. It will not provide a full living and she is likely to be forced on to supplementary benefit. Then she is unable to work because of the rule about earnings.
Some payment is needed to enable her to keep the household going with her elderly relative in it and which will not


be taken from her if she does part-time work. The change in the rules for contributions to the National Insurance Scheme help because, if the contribution is graduated then even on a low income a claim can be made, but that is not so on the flat rate. The new system is a very considerable help, but it does not go far enough. We must look for a method of paying to a woman in these circumstances an income such as the hon. Lady has suggested but which will not be taken away when the person concerned does part-time work.

Mr. Alec Jones: I support my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Joyce Butler) on this new clause and Amendment No. 146. The idea of an invalid care allowance has been advocated by many people for a long time. The idea is that it should be a similar type of benefit as unemployment benefit and roughly equivalent to it. That seems a reasonable way of dealing with these people who are doing society's work for society. Most of them are giving up their prospects to look after the elderly and infirm.
In most cases they are single daughters of elderly parents, but they are not the only ones. In my constituency there are examples of other relatives, including men, who have been forced to give up work so that they can look after invalid and infirm members of their families. In one case, which is carrying charity to considerable lengths, a friend of an invalid has given up work to look after that person.
These people do this for a variety of reasons and they perform a most valuable social service on our behalf. On purely economic grounds we should look favourably on this proposal, for these people save considerable sums of public money. If they were not doing this work the only solution would be for the elderly and infirm to go into hospitals or other institutions. In some cases the service these people perform is better than the type of service provided in the public sector because it is more personal and fits in better with the requirements of the elderly or infirm person.
11.15 p.m.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green was right to emphasise that these

people make considerable sacrifices, not only now but for the future. It is not only a question of giving up current income, which can be a great burden, but in many cases they give up any future career prospects they might have. Under present regulations they give up almost completely any hope of an adequate retirement pension. It also means that, because they are not making contributions to our national insurance scheme, at some later date they lose their entitlement to unemployment or sickness benefit.
Because of the service they have given to elderly people over 20 or more years these are the very people most likely to go down with sickness. We shall probably be told that there is great sympathy and understanding for these people. I am not disparaging the Minister. He will undoubtedly remind us that they can apply for supplementary benefit. This is missing the point. Such benefit is means-tested whereas these people deserve help as of right. Supplementary benefit is not granted in many cases. It can be disallowed for a variety of reasons.
The attendance allowance has helped in some cases. I am sure that everyone is aware of many cases which deserve some sort of attendance allowance but which, because of present regulations, cannot get it. I know of one case where a daughter gave up work to look after her invalid mother. Supplementary benefit was refused because the father is considered to earn sufficient to maintain the 26-year-old daughter. This means that the daughter, who has given up not only her income but her career prospects, has to go to the father for every penny she requires for personal use. This treatment leads to deception.
There is another way round. Instead of the daughter giving up work the father could do so. This is what tends to happen. The father gives up work to look after his wife and makes a claim for sickness or unemployment benefit which we pay out for himself and his wife. I do not believe that this type of deception is desirable. We should as of right provide adequate recompense for these people who willingly perform this service to the elderly and infirm on our behalf, thereby saving us a good deal of money.

Dame Irene Ward: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Joyce Butler) for tabling this new clause. I suggest to the Secretary of State and his hon. Friends that it is an important one which needs careful examination for a number of reasons. The clause is designed to fill a gap which has long existed in our social service system.
For many years I have supported the National Council for the Single Woman and her Dependants. It was started a long time ago by the Rev. Mary Webster. Many hon. Members on both sides have supported this organisation in the belief that sooner or later we would be able to deal with this situation. The moment has now arrived, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the other Ministers must not look at the new clause in any other way than with that fact in mind. We have been grateful to my right hon. Friend who has been helpful over the years because he has recognised the importance of this problem.
There is no reason why we should talk about supplementary benefit or anything like it, because the point has been recognised by my party and by the Opposition and we have all waited for a long time in the belief that when the time came we should be able to deal with the matter properly. The time has now arrived, and it would be most upsetting if we could not now arrive at a means of helping the National Council for the Single Woman and her Dependants to fill this gap.
The council has been growing for a long time. I remember listening to the Rev. Mary Webster. She spoke to the nursing profession, who know of this need and supported her ideas. There is also the Red Cross, and in my part of the world new organisations are being formed to support the National Council. We have worked and argued, and now the time has come for us to hear from the Ministers, in whom I have great faith.
We all have experiences and knowledge in talking about this problem. The Secretary of State has always encouraged us, and I am a politician who believes that when something has had all-party support at a high level and the time comes, action is expected. The hon. Lady the Member for Wood Green and my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea

(Mr. Worsley) are right. For a long time there has not been a Government Department which has been particularly interested in the problem. I have said many times that when young women and perhaps middle-aged women stay at home to look after relatives, local authorities, when they allocate houses, should ensure that persons looking after an elderly relative at least have a single room of their own. Housing authorities have not been interested. The pattern is set by the way houses are allocated by the local authority.
Sometimes one can talk until one is blue in the face because authorities will not alter that pattern. The same applies with supplementary benefit. One can talk until one is blue in the face, but supplementary benefit people have their own ideas—and are entitled to them. They have never understood this problem. That was why the Rev. Mary Webster took this up and the hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Hamling) supported her case. The organisation has had Government support, because the Government knew perfectly well that the gap existed. It would sometimes be difficult for any Secretary of State to alter the attitude of duly-elected councillors or those concerned with supplementary benefit, but now the Government have the opportunity to set their seal on what they think is proper.
I do not know the possible cost. I do not think that my right hon. Friend has ever asked, in spite of all the help he has given, for which we have always been very grateful. Plenty of Members of the other place have also supported the organisation. I do not think that there is a proper appreciation of what is necessary or the assessment of what the cost will be has ever been called for or presented. It may well be that the Department has all the facts. I hope that it has, and that it is prepared to act on them generously.
Something must be done. If my right hon. Friend cannot give a satisfactory answer tonight, I beg him to say that he accepts the basic position stated by the hon. Lady. I am expecting a good answer. If we cannot have one that is cut and dried, I hope that my right hon. Friend will go into the matter in great detail so that it can be dealt with in another place.
There are some things that I do not agree with in the Bill, but I know that in this big world there are many difficulties to be faced, and I say to myself that I do not know enough about some matters. I have confidence in my Government, and therefore I vote for them on those questions. But I think that I know, and those that have spoken know, something about this matter. We know that the gap exists, as does my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, and if he wants to argue with the Treasury I do not believe that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor would disagree, because I am certain that his wife would support the national council.
I wrote to the council to ask it to let me know whether there was anything it particularly wanted to have raised. In spite of the pressures that are exerted, quite rightly, on all sort of other aspects of the Bill, I had a simple letter back saying that the council's requirements were known and that it would be very grateful for anything we could do. It is very nice that the hon. Lady has produced the new clause.
I do not need to encourage my right hon. Friend, because I know how much he minds about the matter. I hope that in answering the debate Ministers will realise that they are dealing with something on which we have all wanted action for a long time. Let us not miss opportunities. If they are missed, they often do not recur.
I will not tell the House everything that has been done by my right hon. Friend to help us, but he has done a great deal. Therefore, it must be a great pleasure to him to know that the council has worked all these years. The country knows the work that is done. I hope for a satisfactory reply, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend will not let us down.

11.30 a.m.

Mr. Arthur Blenkinsop: I rise to add my support to the proposition put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Joyce Butler). What we all welcome so much is that this is an effort to put forward a practical proposal for helping in what, for a long time, has been a real and distressing problem. It has always been difficult to formulate a proposal in reasonably satis-

factory terms, but I think that this is a sensible and practical proposal which stands up to examination.
I am sure that among our constituents we all have examples of the kind of problem raised by my hon. Friend. I have in my constituency examples of the more common situation of the young woman who has taken on the responsibility of caring for her parents and over the years has gradually aged herself in helping to look after them. In one case the daughter has done as the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) suggested. She has been able both to help her parents at a new centre that has been established and to help many others. It has all been voluntary work. She has undoubtedly derived a great deal of joy from that, but she has also sought to campaign for others and in a sense help rescue them from the difficulties that can so clearly arise.
I have in mind another case of a rather different character, where the husband has given up work in order to take over the responsibility of caring for his wife. After his daughter married, he considerately and properly tried to ensure that her life was not impeded in any way. He has made a considerable sacrifice in giving up his work earlier than he would normally have done, and he has sacrificed other rights which he would have obtained. One sees, therefore, that there are also men who undertake this duty, as they undoubtedly and properly feel it to be.
There are plenty of difficulties in trying to work out a scheme of this sort, and this modest proposal is to be commended. It seems to meet the problems which arise in a large number of cases, and I therefore join others in hoping that the Minister will accede to this request and agree to work out this scheme, or something very like it.

Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: I support the new clause introduced by the hon. Lady the Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Joyce Butler). In fact, I made almost the same point as reported at columns 312 and 313 of the Second Reading debate on behalf of the National Council for the Single Woman and her Dependants. There is a tremendous strain on those who look after elderly relatives, however much one loves them, even where adequate resources are available.
I remember vividly what happened when a day centre was opened in my constituency. The matron rang a daughter who had been looking after her mother for 14 years and asked, "What are you doing with your half-day off?", to which the daughter replied "I am just sitting here and doing absolutely nothing".
If one adds to the strain of looking after a relative the strain of the lack of funds—not only at the time but the prospective lack of funds when the loved one has passed on—one realises that it is too much of a burden to ask any woman—or man, as the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop) said—to bear. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Mr. Worsley), I think that it is important that such women should be able to keep up outside contacts and an outside job. Many of them feel that it is a little frivolous to keep up outside friends and engagements but they would not hesitate, if they could do so, to keep up a part-time job and the contacts that would go with it. However, they can do that only if their part-time earnings are supplemented by an allowance of the kind which we are discussing.
I hope that the Minister will consider the matter carefully and introduce amendments accordingly at a later stage.

Mr. R. C. Mitchell: I support my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Joyce Butler). Purely by coincidence I put down a Question on the Order Paper today asking about this matter. Unfortunately it was not reached. In fact, I was referred to two Questions which had been asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mrs. Lena Jeger) and the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Woodhouse) on 30th March. On that day the Secretary of State replied:
 I have no proposals on these points.
That seemed fairly definite. I hope that he will tell us tonight that since 30th March he has developed a few proposals. The right hon. Gentleman then said:
Under existing arrangements, the attendant may of course qualify for supplementary benefit, and in the case of a single woman this can cover the cost of her (non-employed) contribution for retirement pension purposes.

Of course, it is by no means certain that quite a lot of these people will qualify for supplementary benefit. That is the position for a variety of reasons. It is also by no means certain that if they qualify for supplementary benefit they will automatically have paid their supplementary benefit class III contributions. That happens on the majority of occasions but it is not automatic.
All hon. Members can bring individual cases to mind. There have been several in my constituency—teachers in particular, although not exclusively—who have given up 20 years' of their lives, often the best years of their lives, to look after aged parents. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda, West (Mr. Alec Jones) said, such people save the country an awful lot of money. Many parents would otherwise have to be put in local authority homes or would have to occupy valuable geriatric beds in hospitals. Therefore, these people do valuable social work in keeping down costs.
Many of the things which have been said so far apply to men. I know of two or three cases where men in their 50s have had to give up their employment to look after a sick wife. I know of the tragic case of a man who had reason to give up his job at the age of 51 to look after his sick wife. He felt that it was his duty to do so. There were no relatives, no children and no one else who could help. He did that for two years. During that time he lost a lot of his pension entitlement. At the end of the two years his wife unfortunately died. At the age of 52 he then had to try to find a job. That is difficult enough, but he found that he had lost a lot of benefits. He was forced to apply for supplementary benefit and has had to continue to receive such benefit.
I have always held the view that supplementary benefit should be used only to deal with those who could not be dealt with in other ways. There are many people in this category. Many men and women give up their jobs—very often good jobs such as teachers—to look after their aged and infirm parents. The Minister replied on 30th March:
The number of people who have had to give up work to act as attendants is uncertain, and no reliable estimate can be made of the cost of the changes suggested.


Inquiries have recently been made to find out who are the disabled in our community. It should not be difficult to find out how many people have given up their jobs to look after aged relatives and what the cost would be. To put it in crude economic terms, I suspect that it would be cheaper to pay a regular allowance and to continue with the class I contributions during the period when such people are looking after aged parents or relatives than to allow those elderly people to go into homes or, not having continued with contributions and therefore not being entitled to full pensions, make it necessary for those who have been looking after aged relatives to apply for supplementary benefit.
This process rolls on. Those who have been looking after aged relatives, when they reach 60 years of age and retire, will often find that their pensions are smaller than normal pensions, so they in turn will have to apply for supplementary benefit. It is a self-inducing process which goes on and on.
I hope that we shall hear from the Minister more than what was said on 30th March:
I have no proposals on these points."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th March 1973; Vol. 853, c. 423.]
If he does not give a sympathetic reply, I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green will press the new clause to a division.

Mr. Alfred Morris: This debate has been distinguished by the fact that there has been no criticism of the new clause from either side of the House. Hon. Members opposite have been as fulsome as my hon. Friends in their support for the principle at stake here.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Joyce Butler) on the content as well as the manner of her submission in support of this important new clause. She always speaks with great authority on these matters, her authority being based on a keen personal commitment to people in special need, and she has put forward a powerful argument for the new clause.
The hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Worsley), like his hon. Friends, recognises that there is a compelling argument in favour of this proposal. The hon.

Gentleman knows the importance of the principle argued by my hon. Friend to single women who are looking after elderly, usually disabled, parents and that we cannot begin to cost this proposition.
The Under-Secretary of State may say that that is the weakness of the proposition and that we ought to know how much the new clause would cost to public funds.

Mr. R. C. Mitchell: It would save money.

Mr. Morris: Indeed, there are many who would argue that acceptance of the new clause would save money. Many organisations, not least the women's organisations, would rejoice if the new clause were accepted and enacted. Many organisations representing disabled people would be glad if the Undersecretary accepted my hon. Friend's proposition.
The new clause says
A person shall be entitled to an invalid care allowance if he … has been obliged to give up his employment … to care for an elderly or infirm person with whom he resides at the time of giving up employment.
11.45 p.m.
I direct the Under-Secretary's attention to a very important case that has been put to me recently. Two disabled people, Gerald and Kathleen Turner, live together. Both of them are spastics. Mrs. Turner puts their problem like this:
Gerald and I may share the same table, but we cannot share each other's shoes.
Life is certainly a struggle for the Turners. They have to struggle against disability, bureaucracy and extreme poverty. Gerald Turner, aged 41, is severely disabled. Kathleen, his wife, aged 42, is a much less severely disabled spastic. They live on the thirteenth floor of a block of high-rise flats in London.
Before she was married, Kathleen used to earn £19·20 a week as the supervisor in a dress firm's cutting rooms. She qualified for £3·75 earnings-related supplement. She says that because of trade union activity her husband used to receive a 35p allowance for shoe leather because of his disability. Last December Kathleen gave up work to look after the home and her husband. Now they live on £10·90 national insurance benefit, made


up to £14·65 with earnings-related supplement. The 35p for shoe leather stopped when Kathleen stopped work.
Gerald has qualified for no income at all since he left the institution where he was living before he married Kathleen. Kathleen says,
This was a great blow because we thought he would get something. After all, it would cost £1,000 a year if he was in a home I do not think £5 a week would have been unreasonable.
The income of this couple is £14 a week. They are living in central London. They are saving the community a great deal of money because one of them who used to live in an institution is now receiving home care.
This case demonstrates the failure of central Government to carry out the kind of studies of cost-effectiveness that ought to be undertaken if we are to have meaningful discussions about the cost of accepting changes such a that proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green. She has spoken of those who save the public money by allowing their elderly relatives the dignified care which can be provided by living at home.
It was an hon. Member on the Government side of the House who nodded when my hon. Friend said that many are hypocrites in these debates. They ask for community care as against institutional care, but they fail to put their money where their sentiments lie. The Government will advance the possibilities of home care if they will look sympathetically at new clauses such as this.
I acknowledge the powerful sincerity of those Conservative Members who have spoken for the new clause. There will be no objection from this side of the House if the Minister accepts the new clause. In fact, many hon. Members on both sides will feel an obligation to support it in the Lobby.

Mrs. Joyce Butler: Perhaps that will not be necessary.

Mr. Morris: I hope that my hon. Friend is right, in which case we shall congratulate the Minister. I hope that he will respond sympathetically to the arguments. There will be no opposition from this side if, in a spirit of generosity and, I would say, of sound business sense, he accepts the new clause.

Mr. Dean: A debate on a subject like this is bound to strike a chord with every hon. Member, and I am sure that we are all very grateful to the hon. Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Joyce Butler) for drawing attention to it. We all recognise the enormous care and devotion which many single people—usually women, but sometimes men—give to their elderly relatives. What is involved is not only devotion and care but the personal sacrifice which they willingly make—which can be financial, in their jobs, and, for want of a better word, can affect their "status" through being so tied down.
This sacrifice does not obtain only while they are looking after their relatives, but continues throughout the rest of their lives. It can create problems for the men and women themselves when they reach retirement age.
I am glad, too, that tribute has been paid to the work which has been done by the National Council for the Single Woman and her Dependants in drawing attention to this problem and putting practical proposals before us.
We have made a slow start in this country in regard to those who are disabled themselves and those who look after them. In recent years, on a non-party political basis, we have been trying to make up for that slow start, but because of it many gaps remain to be filled. My hon. Friends the Members for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) and Chelsea (Mr. Worsley) have referred to the problem of the single woman looking after aged dependants and to the absence of an allowance for her as one of the major gaps in our social security arrangements. The hon. Member for Rhondda, West (Mr. Alec Jones) has spoken of the valuable social services being provided by these people for their relatives, and all of us know from our constituency experience how enormously valuable these services are. When we talk about social services we so often think about services provided by the State, by the local authority or by voluntary organisations. But much of the social services, indeed, probably the largest part, are provided within families by members of those families and this is one good example of it.
My hon. Friends the Members for Chelsea and Lancaster (Mrs. Kellett-Bowman) also drew attention to the importance of employment, possibly of part-time employment, for people who are caring for their relatives so that they can maintain contact with the outside world and all that goes with it. The message which has come so clearly from the debate is not whether we should be doing something, but how we should do it. The Government recognise that and share that feeling.
The national council has helped us in trying to assess the size of the problem, but it is not easy to assess just how many people we are talking about. There are some 300,000 single women living with parents of pensionable age, and a rather larger number of single men in this position. In most of these cases, fortunately, the parents are in good health and are able to play their part in the household. The children are therefore able to take full-time employment.
A better definition of the numbers involved is probably the Supplementary Benefits Commission's record to show that about 14,000 people are receiving supplementary allowance because they are caring for a relative. About 10,000 of these are single women. What is being done to help them? Here again it is difficult to be precise because we are dealing with a great variety of cases such as married men with sick or disabled wives, wives with sick husbands, single parents with children needing care, and others. The circumstances differ greatly, both of those who are in need of care and those who are actually caring.
The supporting services provided by local authorities are an important aspect of this and they are being substantially improved with direct help from the Government. The new attendance allowance is bringing valuable help to many people who are receiving care and attention of the kind we are discussing. About 90,000 allowances are now in payment and the allowance is being extended to a further group of people who will probably number a quarter of a million or so.
It can be seen that in many of these hard-pressed households there is now an additional allowance, helping with the household expenses, which was not available previously. Help is available in some cases from supplementary benefits.

The hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. R. C. Mitchell) drew attention to that. Not only financial help can be made available here. In some cases, though not all, the single woman can have included in her allowance the cost of the non-employed national insurance contribution, which enables her to preserve entitlement to the retirement pension.
The Bill also gives some additional help, though no more than a modest addition, to people in this category. My hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea referred to the somewhat easier contribution conditions for benefits in the basic scheme, especially for the retirement pension. The fact that those who are on a comparatively low level of earnings will pay less in earnings-related contributions than now is a help. The fact that the contribution conditions enable people to have a gap in their contribution records under the new arrangements without losing entitlement to the full rate of pension will be of considerable help to quite a number of women in the categories of which we are speaking. There is also the extension of occupational pension cover and the compulsory preservation of occupational pension rights.
All these will help the woman who has to give up employment before the retirement age both to maintain her contribution record for a full pension in the basic scheme and also to be able to maintain the rights which she has built up for a second pension in her occupational scheme and which will be preserved for her. These are all ways in which there is modest additional help under the Bill.
12 midnight.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea made a special plea for greater help for those who wish to continue in part-time work. He made the point that the supplementary benefit arrangements are not satisfactory because the amount which can be earned without loss of benefit does not fill the need. I assure my hon. Friend that this is one of many aspects that we are now considering. As we study the experience of some European countries we see there is little doubt that they have managed in a way in which so far we have not to combine a social security benefit which caters for part of the subsistence needs of a person with


part-time earnings which cater for the other part. They have managed to combine the two without running into the difficulties and disadvantages which exist in our present arrangements. This is an area which we are actively considering what has been done in Europe and ways in which we may be able to develop.

Mr. John Wells: As I understand it, one of the biggest problems of the would-be part-time earner is getting part-time employment. The willing employer finds the overheads of providing such employment quite ridiculous. Cannot my hon. Friend look far more closely at continental patterns? Our present system is a complete bugbear to the willing employer and the willing employee. The jobs are there and the employees are there, but the two do not marry up because of the stamp and the overheads.

Mr. Dean: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that. It reminds me that I should have said a little more about the help that the new scheme will provide. One of the difficulties which have discouraged employers from providing part-time employment under existing arrangements is that they have to pay full national insurance contributions, and they are reluctant to do so in the circumstances. Under the new arrangements the contribution that an employer will pay will be directly related to the earnings of the person concerned. Therefore the employer of someone on a low level of earnings will have to pay a comparatively modest level of contribution. My hon. Friend has made a valuable comment in pointing out that one discouragement in the present system will be to some extent removed or diminished under the proposals in the Bill.

Mr. Ronald Brown: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the part-time earner will get the same benefits on retirement as those who pay the full contribution even though the employer has made a smaller contribution?

Mr. Dean: That is broadly it. The contributions of the employer and the employee will be based on the earnings of the person concerned. Provided that he has fulfilled the contribution condi-

tions, when he retires or comes on to short-term benefit he will be entitled to the full rate of benefit irrespective of the amount paid.
I do not want to pick holes in the new clause because I realise that the hon. Member for Wood Green primarily wished to debate the subject she raised. She will realise that the awkward question of precisely who should qualify for the allowance is left either to be prescribed in regulations or to be administered by the Attendance Allowance Board. It is these difficulties of definition that tend to hold up progress.
On the possibility of the board being able to administer the new allowances and to adjudicate who is entitled to it, at the moment the board is working flat out—and will be for some months ahead —on getting into payment the attendance allowances which are now being made available to the working age group and will shortly be available to children and then to the elderly. We cannot expect the board to take on an additional load without holding up the extension of the attendance allowance.
Apart from that, there is a great deal of difference between dealing with medical questions of need for attendance, which is primarily the board's job, and dealing with social or personal questions of the range of people which should be providing the attendance and the impact of it on those people. We should have to find another way of making the assessments, and that would not be easy.
We recognise the powerful plea which has been made for progress towards what is described in the clause as an invalid care allowance. A great deal of progress has been made in the last three years in dealing with the problems of the disabled, but the Government have always said that there is a great deal more to be done. We are anxious to proceed as far as we can in as many directions as possible to meet priority needs. The focus at present is on the disabled, but we cannot divorce the disabled from those who care for them.

Mr. R. C. Mitchell: The Minister referred to the contributions paid by part-timers. Surely people earning less than £8 a week—as would be most single women in part-time employment who


look after dependants—do not qualify for all the benefits under class I contributions?

Mr. Dean: The hon. Gentleman is right. There is a lower limit, and there always has been, at which contributions become compulsory. On the other hand, if people wish to pay on a voluntary basis, if able to do so, it is possible for them to do so. Of course, many of the people working part time are above the level and therefore contribute.
A great deal has been done in recent times, but we recognise that a great deal remains to be done. We intend to press on with our plans. We intend to continue to seek the experience of the European countries which, in some ways, are in advance of ourselves. In other words, our ears and our minds are open to all proposals, and we shall consider carefully the powerful arguments put tonight.

Mr. Meacher: In view of what the hon. Gentleman said about the Government's intention to promote the aim at least of the new clause, would not he agree that it is hardly conducive to that aim that women who have these responsibilities will be excluded from the tax credit scheme and that the existing personal tax allowance which they get will be eradicated if the tax credit proposals now being put forward are implemented? Is that assisting the aim in the rather glib way in which the hon. Gentleman is saying it?

Mr. Dean: The hon. Gentleman is prejudging a very important issue. One of the purposes of the Select Committee considering the tax credit proposals is to consider matters such as that. When it reports, the Government will consider its recommendations along with the thoughts and discussions going on at present. The hon. Gentleman is prejudging both the consideration of the Government and the consideration of the Select Committee by automatically assuming that there is to be no help through the tax credit proposals for the

people we are concerned with in the new clause.

I hope the House will feel, in view of what I have said, and, I hope, the sympathetic and open-minded way in which I have approached the new clause, that a real problem of definitions and seeing our way forward exists—a problem, which, as I think the hon. Lady freely admits, is not solved in the new clause. I hope the House will accept that the Government are genuine in what they say about their desire to progress in provision not only for those who are disabled but for those who care for them, and that our record over the last three years will carry force when we speak about the progress we firmly intend to make in future.

Mrs. Butler: The hon. Gentleman has been so very sympathetic that it is difficult to resist his blandishments. I am impressed by two things. First, during the debate all those who took part supported the principle of the new clause and of an invalid care allowance, and did so knowing of the improvements in the Bill and in the other ways to which the hon. Gentleman has drawn attention. Therefore, I do not feel, although he has put his case in such a sympathetic and understanding way, that he has added to our knowledge of the subject or has changed the attitude of those of us who have supported the case for an invalid care allowance.
The important point is not whether the new clause is drafted as it should be—it would have been better, no doubt, if it had been drafted perfectly—but the principle it enshrines. I would like to see the principle added to the Bill at this stage so that, at a later stage, the new clause could be refined and improved and made more workable. I would still like to support the new clause and I hope that some of my hon. Friends will join me in doing so.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time: —

The House divided: Ayes 124, Noes 151.

Division No. 126.]
AYES
[12.15 p.m.


Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)
Brown, Ronald(Shoreditch &amp; F'bury) 
Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara


Ashlon, Joe
Buchan, Norman
Clark, David (Colne Valley) 


Bagier, Gordon A. T. 
Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn) 
Cohen, Stanley


Bishop, E. S. 
Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green) 
Coleman, Donald


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.) 
Concannon, J. D. 


Boardman, H. (Leigh) 
Cant, R. B. 
Conlan, Bernard


Brown, Robert C. (N'c'tle-u-Tyne,W.) 
Carmichael, Neil
Cunningham, G. (Islington, S.W.) 


Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan) 
Carter-Jones. Lewis (Eccies) 
Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whilehaven) 




Dalyell, Tam
Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)
Pavitt, Laurie


Davidson, Arthur
Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.)
Peart, Rt. Hn, Fred


Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)
Judd, Frank
Perry, Earnest G.


Davies, Terry (Bromsgrove)
Kaufman, Gerald
Prescott, John


Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund
Kinnock, Neil
Rees, Meriyn (Leeds, S.)


Doig, Peter
Lamond, James
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Douglas, Dick (Stirligshire, E.)
Lawson, George
Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy (Caernarvon)


Duffy, A.E.P.
Leonard, Dick
Robertson, John (Paisley)


Dunnett, Jack
Lestor, Miss Joan
Roderick, Caerwyn E. (Brc'n&amp;R'ndor)


Eadie, Alex
Lipton, Marcus
Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)


Edwards, William (Merioneth)
Loughlin, Charles
Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)


Ellis, Tom
Lyon, Alexander W. (York)
Silverman, Julius


English, Michael
Lyons, Edward (Bardford, E.)



Skinner, Dennis
Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)
Small, William


Ewing, Harry
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson



Fernyhough, Rt. Hn. E.
McBride, Neil
Spearing, Nigel


Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
McElhoe, Frank
Sprigs, Leslie


Foot, Michael
McGuire, Michael
Strang, Gavin


Ford, Ben
Machin, George
Thomas, Rt. Hn. George (Cardiff, W.)


Forrester, John
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)
Tinn, James


Galpern, Sir Myer
Mcnamara, J. Kevin
Torney, Tom


Gilbert, Dr. John
Marks, Kenneth
Varley, Eric G.


Grant, George (Morpeth)
Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy
Wainwright, Edwin


Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)
Meacher, Michael
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert
Watkins, David


Hardly, Peter
Mendelson, John
Wellbeloved, James


Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Millam, Bruce



Horam, John
Mitchell, R.C. (S'hampton, Itchen)



Huckfield, Leslie
Molloy, William
Whitehead, Philip



Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)
Wilson, Wlexande (Hamilton)


Hughes, Mark (Durham)
Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)
Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)


Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Woof, Robert


Hunter, Adam
Oakes, Gordon



Janner, Greville
O'Halloran, Michael
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


John, Brynmor
O'Malley, Brain
Mr. James AS. Dunn and


Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)
Palmer, Arthur
Mr. Joseph Harper


Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)
Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)





NOES


Adley, Robert
Fry, Peter
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)


Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)
Gibson-Watt, David
Molyneaux, James


Aliason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Goodhew, Victor
Money, Ernie


Atkins, Humphrey
Gower, Raymond
Monks, Mrs. Connis


Awdry, Daniel
Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)
Monro, Hector


Baker, W.H.K. (Banff)
Gray, Hamish
Montgomery, Fergus


Balniel, Rt. Hn. Lord
Green, Alan
More, Jasper


Bannett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)
Griffiths, Eldon (Burry St. Edmunds)
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.


Benyon, W.
Grylls, Michael
Morrison, Charles


Berry, Hn. Anthony
Gummer, J. Selwyn
Mudd, David


Biffen, John
Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)
Murton, Oscar


Biggs-Davison, John
Hall, John (Wycombe)
Neave, Airey


Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)
Hannam, John (Exeter)
Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally


Boscawen, Hn. Robert
Havers, Michael



Bossom, Sir Clive
Hiley, Joseph
Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)


Bowden, Andrew
Horden, Peter
Page, John (Harrow, W.)


Bruce-Gardyne, J.
Hornby, Richard
Parkinson, Cecil


Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N&amp;M)
Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia
Percival, lan


Buck, Antony
Hunt, John
Pink, R. Bonner


Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Price, David (Eastleigh)


Campbell, Rt. Hn. G. (Moray &amp; Bairn)
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Proudfoot, Wilfred


Carlisle, Mark
James, David
Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis


Campman, Sydney




Chatway, Rt. Hn. Christopher
Jopling, Michael
Redmond, Robert


Christopher-Clark, R.
Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith
Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)


Churchill, W.S.




Cooke, Robert
Kaberry, Sir Donald
Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David


Cordle, John
Kershaw, Anthony
Rhys Williams, Sir Barndon


Cormack, Patrick
King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Ronerts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)


Critchley, Julian
King, Tom (Bridgwater)
Roberts, Wyn (Conway)


Crowder, F.P.
Kinsey, J.R.
Rost, Peter


d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Maj.-Gen.Jack

Royle, Anthony



Lamont, Norman
Russell, Sir Ronald


Dean, Paul
Lane, David
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gn &amp; Whitby)


Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.
Landford-Holt, Sir John
Skeet, T. H. H.


Digby, Simon Wingfield
Loveridge, John
Soref, Harold


Dykes, Hugh
MacArthur, lan
Speed, Keith


Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)
McLaren, Martin
Sproat, lain


Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)
Mclaren, Martin
Sproat, lain


Elliott, R.W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)
Macmillan, Rt. Hn. Maurice (Farnham)
Stewart-Smith, Geoffery (Belper)


Eyre, Riginal
McNair-Wilson, Michael
Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.


Fisher, Reginald
McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)
Stuttaford, Dr. Tom


Fletcjer-Cooke, Charles
Madel, David
Sutcliffe, John


Fortescue, Tim
Maude, Angus
Taylor, Edward M. (G'gow, Cathcard)


Foster, Sir John
Mawby, Ray



Fowler, Norman
Meyer, Sir Anthony
Tebbit, Norman


Fox, Marcus
Miscampbell, Norman
Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)


Fraer, Rt. Hn. Hugh (St'fford &amp;Stone)
Mitchell, LT.-Col.C. (Aberdeenshire, W)
Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)







Tugendhat, Christopher
Weatherill, Bernard
Woodnutt, Mark


Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin
Wells, John (Maidstone) 
Younger, Hn. George


Waddington, David
Wiggin, Jerry



Walder, David (Clitheroe) 
Wilkinson, John
TELLERS FOR THE NOES: 


Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester) 
Winterton, Nicholas
Mr. Kenneth Clarke and


Wall, Patrick
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick
Mr. Paul Hawkins.

Question accordingly negatived.

Clause 1

OUTLINE OF BASIC SCHEME CONTRIBUTORY SYSTEM

Mr. Dean: I beg to move Amendment No. 1, in page 3, line 29, leave out 'Part of this'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): With this we can also discuss the following amendments:
No. 2, in line 34, leave out 'Part of this'.
No. 110, in Clause 96, page 126, line 40, leave out subsection (3) and insert:
'(3) Where under Part I of this Act a person is to be treated by reference to any employment of his as an employed earner, then he is to be so treated for all purposes of this Act, and references throughout this Act to employed earner's employment shall be construed accordingly'.

Mr. Dean: These are purely technical amendments to secure that the basic distinction between the employed earner and the self-employed earner is consistently applied for all purposes of the measure, in particular in Parts II and III.

Amendment agreed to.

Amendment made: No. 2, in page 3, line 34 [Clause 1], leave out 'Part of this '.—[Mr. Dean.]

Mr. Dean: I beg to move Amendment No. 3, in page 3, line 36, at end insert:
'(without prejudice to his being also treated as an employed earner as respects that week by reference to any other employment of his)'.
This is a point which arose during Committee stage. I have discussed the point and I am advised that an amendment is not required. Nevertheless, to put the matter beyond any doubt, this amendment adds words to the subsection to make it explicit that a person can be both employed and self-employed during the same period.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 4

CLASS 2 CONTRIBUTIONS

Mr. Dean: I beg to move Amendment No. 4, in page 4, line 3, leave out 'and its Schedules'.
This is a technical amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Meacher: I beg to move Amendment No. 5, in page 5, line 27, leave out from 'pension' to end of line 31.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it would be convenient to take the following amendments:
No. 163, in page 37, line 42, after 'Act', insert:
'increased by one-third of any category A retirement pension to which she would be entitled but for section 23(6) of this Act'.
No. 161, in Schedule 4, page 142, line 14, leave out '(a) higher rate'.
No. 162, in page 142, column 2, leave out lines 15 to 18.

Mr. Meacher: This is an important amendment. It is concerned with the married woman's option given in the National Insurance Act 1948, for married women in employment to opt to depend entirely on their husband's insurance for the purpose of purchasing or obtaining sickness benefit, unemployment benefit, and retirement pension. All that a married woman in that situation would pay is a small contribution towards industrial injuries benefit.
We are concerned in abolishing the married woman's option by this amendment to take account of the sea change, no less, which has occurred in the position of women in society today, both in the way in which they see themselves and in the way in which they are increasingly regarded.
This seeks to take account of the fact that women no longer regard themselves or wish to be regarded as dependent on their husbands. It is a concept which has doubtless done us well in the past but is increasingly rejected by women,


who increasingly assert, as all hon. Members know, their independence and desire for equality.
I would stress that this is in no sense a hysterical demand from the Women's Lib campaign It has been put forward at the highest level and in that I refer to the National Women's Commission which is located in the Cabinet Secretariat and is a bipartisan and very high-powered body. It is its considered opinion, which it has communicated to all hon. Members on the Committee and probably to a number of others as well, that the retention of the married women's option today is distinctly regressive.
These people take the view that in a society which has now implemented the Equal Pay Act or is in process of bringing it to fruition—although the Government did not take the option to get up to 90 per cent. of male earnings by the end of this year and we shall have to wait until the end of 1975—it is illogical that the married women's option is retained. Clearly, if one is to coincide with the final implementation of the Equal Pay Act, the logic is to remove the married woman's option.
The change is substantial in society. If one takes the inter-war period, it is true that women were dependent on their husbands. In 1931, for example, fewer than 500,000 married women were at work. In 1971 between 4 million and 5 million were at work, and that figure was almost certainly lower than it would otherwise have been because of the very high level of unemployment. Perhaps the normal figure today is substantially more than 5 million married women at work, earning and making a contribution to the family income which is in no sense pin money but is increasingly essential.
12.30 a.m.
Half the women at work are married. More than a third of the married women with children are in paid employment. That is a dramatically different situation from that which prevailed in the inter-war period and the first or second decade after the war.
Part of the reason for our belief that the married women's option should be abolished is that we must take account of the clear movement towards increas-

ing independence and equality for women, the desire not to be dependent on another individual—at least, not financially. There is also the need to take account of the changes in the divorce laws which have recently been passed through the House. In addition, there is a series of specific reasons.
First, if the exemption were to continue, one result would be to put a greater burden on other contributors to produce a decent pension, as the ratio of workers and contributors on the one hand and dependants or pensioners on the other has been worsening. These are figures that the Government have accepted. The Under-Secretary frequently quoted them in Committee. In 1948 there were five or more workers per pensioner receiving a pension. The figure now is probably about 3⅔, and it is estimated to be little more than three by 1980. It would ease the situation considerably if the number of contributors were increased.
Secondly, it can always be said that, as long as we retain a flat-rate contribution, women, who are the lowest paid in our society by and large, would find it particularly difficult to meet it. But when we are changing first from a flat-rate contribution system, and more recently from a hybrid, partly flat-rate, partly earnings-related contribution system, to a wholly earnings-related contribution system, that considerably eases the situation for women, even if they remain among the lower paid. Therefore, another argument for retaining the option has disappeared.
Thirdly, compulsory national insurance for women would be fairer to employers, quite a number of whom now voluntarily pay sick benefit when the woman is not covered by national insurance. Clearly, it is unfair and unreasonable that some good employers should do that when others exercise the option not to do so.
Fourthly, it is undesirable that women should depend on their husbands' contributions, which could be avoided. All hon. Members will have had experience in their clinics of the woman who is a casualty of the belief that her husband was paying the full rate of contributions, only to find at a difficult point in the marriage that that was not so. That is an undesirable form of dependence. It


is the retention of the dependency concept that is still very marked throughout the Bill. In so far as the divorce laws passed in 1970 begin to operate, it is undesirable that there should be that continued necessary dependence on husbands.
At the stage we have reached in our social security system, perhaps the most critical area of social security that is not now covered is marriage breakdown. One of the great needs is a resettlement allowance to enable a woman whose marriage has broken down to retain her independence without the necessity of claiming means-tested benefits. The number of unsupported mothers in receipts of supplementary benefits is between 250,000 and 300,000, and the figure is increasing. These women find it difficult to get out of the situation into which they have fallen. If we are to move towards a resettlement allowance, it would be far easier and more equitable to do so if married women were paying their full independent rate of contribution into the system.
When that suggestion was put to the Government in Committee there were various comments about it, and I propose to look briefly at some of the reasons for resisting the proposal.
The Under-Secretary said that no fewer than three-quarters of the 4½ million to 5 million married women in employment exercise the married woman's option, from which the hon. Gentleman drew the conclusion that that is something which they wish to retain and it is therefore not proper, in view of the large proportion in favour of the scheme, to do away with it. My answer is that that is not surprising when one remembers that married women get a much lower rate of unemployment benefit, sickness benefit and retirement pension. In those circumstances, a woman is not encouraged to stand on her own two feet.
I appreciate that women over 50 might reasonably be expected to be excluded from this sudden or abrupt ending of the married woman's option, and we are prepared to be flexible over this issue if, as a transitional arrangement, the Government feel that the scheme ought to be retained for women over 50. That might appeal to us as reasonable and proper.
In Committee the Under-Secretary asked how, if the married woman's option were done away with, cover would be provided for those married women who for reasons of their own do not go out to work. If all women were compelled to contribute it would be much easier, by raising the contribution for all—not by very much—to begin to move towards a home responsibility payment. That strikes me as an attractive means of dealing with the problem, but it would not be easy to carry it out unless all married women were making their full contribution to the social security system.
I believe that those are strong arguments for taking cognisance of the change that has occurred in society and for taking account of a whole series of reasons why it has become somewhat anachronistic to retain this dependency concept which may have served us well up to the last decade but is now increasingly seen to be more suitable for the past than for the future.
I turn to Amendments Nos. 161 and 162 which are concerned with the fact that married women who elect to contribute at the full rate receive a short-term benefit—either unemployment or sickness—at the lower rate of only £4·75 at current values, and not £6·75, which is the full rate. It immediately prompts one to ask how it can be justified that when married women decide to pay their full rate of contribution they still receive a reduced rate of benefit.
The Under-Secretary of State said in Committee that the rate of benefit was reduced and that a woman's allowance after marriage was not the same as a man's or a single woman's because the woman was not normally the breadwinner. If she were the breadwinner I appreciate that she would receive the full rate. That is precisely the point which we are making. Even if she is not the breadwinner, she nevertheless wishes to be independent and to retain her identity and financial autonomy. It is no answer to say that the woman's allowance after marriage is not the same as a man's or a single woman's. We are saying that it should be the same.
We have so far had no real answer why women, if they exercise the option to pay full contributions, should not receive the full rate of unemployment and sickness benefit. The extra yield, if


the married woman's option were abolished, would be, according to the Under-Secretary of State, approximately £130 million. That includes £20 million of Exchequer supplement. Whilst we appreciate that that would not be sufficient to raise the pension by more than a small amount or to raise it all, it would, nevertheless, be enough to ensure that married women who paid full contributions would get the full rate of unemployment benefit, sickness benefit and widows benefit. If the married woman's option were not abolished—

Sir K. Joseph: The hon. Gentleman generally takes immense trouble to get his facts right, although sometimes we have to dispute them. However, he said that the married woman who opts to pay full contributions nevertheless receives lower unemployment and sickness benefits. That is correct. He also said—I think that it was a slip of the tongue—that married women receive lower retirement and, just now, lower widows' benefits. Those facts are not correct.

Mr. Meacher: I apologise if I said that. If I did so it was a slip of the tongue. We are concerned with short-term benefits. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for putting the record right.
If the married woman's option were not abolished, we should be faced with several anomalies. Although these matters were raised briefly in Committee I do not think that they have been answered. First, women would lose for ever the contributions which they made before marriage or before they took up the option to contract out. That is one anomaly.
Secondly, married women who qualify on their husband's insurance cannot get a pension until their husband retires, unless, of course, they are five or more years younger than their husband. I believe it is correct that on average wives are less than five years younger than their husbands. That is an anomaly which affects a significant number of wives. The problem arises only because the retirement age for women was put five years earlier than for men so that wives would be available to look after their husbands when their husbands had retired. In other words, the dependency

concept is retained which we now find so objectionable. I regret that a new clause was not accepted which would have enabled an equal date of retirement. The best way out of the problem is to do away with the married woman's option.
Thirdly, wives cannot compel their husbands to pay contributions. That is a serious anomaly in the minority of cases where the woman expects to be covered and then finds that she is not.
Lastly, if a married woman opts out she denies herself, as I have indicated, unemployment and sickness benefit. The crucial point is that her wage is certainly not one which can be readily lost. It is one that may well be crucial for the purpose of hire-purchase payments and mortgage payments. Of course, I entirely accept—I hope that I am not being too paternalistic—that a married woman is entitled to make that option at present. However, the consequences are often too little foreseen and it is left to others to pick up the results of the casualties.
12.45 a.m.
This is an important issue about which there is increasing feeling by women. This feeling is accentuated all the time and is growing stronger. It has taken root not just among women who can be dismissed as the hysterical fringe but in the citadels of status. One need not put it higher than that it is strongly felt by the National Women's Commission that the married women's option should be done away with.
It is not possible to provide full independence, full equality, full opportunities, for women in our society until they are ready—I believe that they are ready—to seize the opportunity to achieve that independence, and that, above all, must be a financial independence.
I strongly commend the amendment to the House. I hope that the Secretary of State will give it a favourable and constructive response, because we have not so far had a very convincing refutation of it.

Mrs. Castle: It is a great pity that this important issue has to be discussed at such a late hour. It is never easy, with a predominantly maculine audience, to get a warm and sympathetic response to an


attempt to get those men to put themselves inside the minds and feelings of a woman's point of view, and certainly at nearly one o'clock in the morning the restiveness becomes even more apparent. Yet the amendment deals with the kernel of the argument about women's equality in pensions.
The amendment embodies a simple issue: are we prepared to give women what they are now demanding—namely, equal rights in return for equal responsibility? That is the simple demand that women are now making of the Government.
In the 30 years since the last war it is clear on every side that there has been a growing revolt among women. I ask the House for a moment to consider why. I suggest that one reason is that our social provision has not tallied or kept pace with the economic and psychological realities of the society in which we live today. In the past 30 years it has been an objective and irrefutable fact that women have been steadily moving towards equal responsibilities, but our social legislation has not been guaranteeing them equal rights.
This Bill, which is not due to come into operation until 1975 when the Equal Pay Act will be in full operation with all its added effects in changing the psychology of society, is intended to transform our social security provisions and attitudes of mind for decades ahead, and the Government have not only the chance, but, I suggest, the duty to use it to equate our social thinking with the objective realities in society. The tragedy is that they have thrown that chance away.
What the Government are proposing in the Bill is to perpetuate indefinitely the Beveridge principle of dependency, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) referred. This was the assumption, spelled out very clearly by Beveridge in the immediate post-war period, that most women would marry and that, having done so, they would become overwhelmingly dependent upon their husbands as the breadwinners, and that it followed naturally, therefore, that they should come under the husband's social security umbrella and not have a separate one of their own.
This principle has dominated our national insurance provisions until recent years. I accept that it was the principle

in the Labour Government's legislation on national insurance in 1948. All of us accepted the Beveridge principles despite the profound changes that had taken place in women's rôle in society as a result of the war. But there is always a time lag in these things. So that has been the principle which has dominated our national insurance provisions—the concept of family cover financed by the husband's contribution, so that even when the married woman went out to work she should have the option not to contribute separately to the national insurance scheme. It is this principle which the Government are perpetuating in the Bill.
I ask the House, if it can make the imaginative effort in the inevitable stage of stateness and tiredness which we are all in at this hour of the night, to consider for a women how absurd it is that we should be proposing to start in 1975 a new era of social security provision based on that old and now obviously out-of-date principle.

Mr. Charles Loughlin: I am at a bit of a loss. Will my right hon. Friend tell me the kind of women about whom she is talking? Are they working-class women who either work in industry or stay at home, or are they middle-class women who burn their bras? In practice, how far does my right hon. Friend assume that this concept of independence spreads throughout working-class people? I do not believe a word of what she is saying.

Mrs. Castle: I tremble to think what will happen to my hon. Friend when he next sets foot in any meeting of Labour women, either nationally or in his constituency. The people for whom I am speaking are the Women's Conference of the TUC, the women's organisations of the Labour Party and the National Joint Committee of Working Women's Organisations. If my hon. Friend were only a little closer in touch with them he would find—it has surprised me as, apparently, it has surprised him—how very passionately they are now pleading for this concept of the independent coverage of a woman in her own right when she goes out to work. They gave evidence to the Select Committee on the Tax Credit System only the other day. These representatives of working women's


organisations in industry and in the home make the demand, very simply but emphatically, that women should be treated as separate individual entities and no longer purely as the dependants of a masculine brain.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West said, the reality of working-class life is that, increasingly, married women go out to work. My hon. Friend has given the figures again.
When we raised this issue in Committee, the Under-Secretary, with the most moving paternalism, the good old Victorian attitude, said that the idea of dependency in the social security system simply recognised a fact of life, that the husband would be the main breadwinner, and that
… most married women, for a part of their lives, will be at home rearing children and, therefore, working at home."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee E; 23rd January 1973; c. 221.]
He was not telling me or my hon. Friends anything that we did not know. What we are saying to him is that it is he who is ignoring the new facts of life. Now it is the woman in society who, by the nature of things, most needs social security cover and yet who, on the principle of dependency, is left at the most vulnerable. Woman's rôle in the world has changed fundamentally since Beveridge.
I must repeat for the benefit of my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) the figures given by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West. Not only are women today a third of our labour force, but half the women at work are married women, and over one-third of married women with children are in paid employment.
What is more—this must be within the experience of every hon. Member— women's wages are not pin money. We are not talking about the flapper voter earning her cosmetics allowance, but about families in which the woman's wage is a vital contribution to domestic solvency. I am not talking only about the hire-purchase on the domestic equipment which can embellish life, but about the payment of the rent or the mortgage and

and the food, gas and electricity bills. I represent a constituency in which most people could not live decently if there were not a tradition of married women going out to work. It is a two-wage society throughout Lancashire, as the hon. and learned Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) will endorse.

Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke: Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke (Darwen) indicated assent.

Mrs. Castle: In a working-class home, the chap who is a bus driver could not pay the rent if his wife were not a weaver. We are talking about a fundamental change in our society and about the realities of working class life.
Yet what we are doing by this apparent concession to women, this apparent tenderness to women, by giving married women at work the right to opt out of their obligations under the national insurance scheme, is giving the State the right to palm off on them inferior benefits. As my hon. Friend said, this is not only socially but economically intolerable.
When a married woman who goes out to work decides not to opt out, she is acting as a full citizen and deciding to earn her own pension. Many of them are proud in this respect. So many of them tell us in our surgeries, "I am insured in my own right." But when they have done that and paid through the nose for the privilege, they find that, when their work is interrupted by unemployment or sickness—when there is redundancy at the cotton mill and they are laid off, or when the fumes of the North-West give them their annual bout of bronchitis—they get unequal short-term benefits and their contribution to the domestic solvency is undermined. They deeply resent the fact that they get a poor return if they do not opt out. By that poor return they are discouraged from setting up their own separate contribution record. The Under-Secretary justifies the continuance of this inequality on the ground that of the many women, the vast majority of them married, who go out to work, three quarters of them prefer to contract out. Surely it is ridiculous to say that their reluctance to invest in a shady endowment policy is proof that it would be wrong to compel them to invest in a proper one.
1.0 a.m.
In arguing strongly against the continuance of the married woman's pension I am in the difficulty of having to do so in the context of the Bill. It is perhaps unwise advice to give to the women because they get such a poor return. But, of course, we want to alter the Bill fundamentally and some of our amendments would carry with them the introduction of full equality to short-term benefits for women as a start.
I would much prefer to be arguing this principle in the context of the Cross-man national superannuation scheme where women would have been given an equal deal in return for equal responsibilities. There would be no opting-out under the Labour Government's national superannuation scheme for the simple reason that we knew we were giving women the finest deal in any insurance system in the world. So we are in that circular argument, but I must dispose of one piece of hypocrisy by the Undersecretary in Committe. He nearly raised the civil rights issue. He seemed to suggest that we might have been undermining one of the basic freedoms of the individual in trying to take away the married woman's right to opt out. He became very solemn about our desire to abolish it. He said:
They propose to introduce an element of compulsion where at the moment there is free choice. To sustain that argument one needs overwhelming reasons for making the change." —[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee E, 23rd January 1973, c. 220.]
The Government have not hesitated to introduce compulsion into the State reserve scheme. There is no opting out for married women. They will be compelled to contribute. If they are in an occupational pension scheme what on earth is the difference in principle?

Sir K. Joseph: I am following the right hon. Member's argument with great attention. As I understand it she wishes to remove from married women the dependent status. Does it follow that it is Opposition policy to remove the right to a dependant's benefit of the wife on her husband's pension? Is that part of the Labour Party's policy?

Mrs. Castle: It is a simple principle. Where the married woman goes out to work she has two new factors in her life.

One is equal responsibility. She is a married woman at work and therefore she should be compelled to contribute on an equal basis with men. The other facet of her situation is that she has equal rights and therefore she gets an identical return to men. I propose that partly on the grounds of social justice. It is only right. She has gone out to work and is a wage earner. She should contribute according to her earnings. Everyone points out that with an earnings-related contribution it is easier and it is fair to compel women to pay contributions because those contributions will be graduated according to her earning capacity. But it is basically in the interests of women themselves because, unless and until they are made to shoulder their statutory responsibilities as contributors, they will always be robbed of their equal rights.

Sir K. Joseph: But is the right hon. Lady proposing that the dependency pension which a wife gets on her husband's pension will be abolished? She has not answered that.

Mrs. Castle: No, because in this situation I am dealing with the woman at work. Starting with that simple proposition, there are all sorts of ways in which we can move to provide for different situations in the home. There is the home responsibility payment, for example. Many other propositions are being put before us in the tax credit scheme. We are not in a position to talk about all the different facets of the social situations for which we have to provide in society. We are dealing with a national insurance Bill which says that a married woman who goes out to work shall have the right to opt out of paying contributions.
Pan passu with that, we have an insurance scheme which, under the cover of freedom of choice for the married women worker, saddles her with inferior benefits, and it will always do so unless it makes her shoulder equal responsibility. The women's organisations are trying to get this across to Members of Parliament and to society as a whole. It is a simple point which they have grasped, and they cling to it with passion, as representatives of the National Joint Council of Working Women's Organisations argued the other day before the


Select Committee which is considering the tax credit scheme.
The Government have introduced this element of compulsion in the State reserve scheme. Why, then, perpetuate the married woman's option to contract out of payments under the basic scheme? There is no logic in the Government's attitude, and there are overwhelming reasons for making a change because the principle of dependency as embodied in the married woman's option does not meet the needs of present day society.
That was made even clearer by the passing of the Equal Pay Act. For years we had the argument against the extension of equal pay from the professional into the industrial grades. It was that the man is the main breadwinner, he has dependants, he has a wife and family, and he should earn more, even for the same work. It has taken us ever since the TUC first broached the principle of equal pay back in 1880— 90 years of argument—to get across to people that our wages system should not be a family cover system and, equally, that our pensions provision should not be made on that basis, either.
The Equal Pay Act breaches the principle of dependency. It says that people should be studied as individuals, treated on their merits and given their individual rights. Once we have that clear, we can adapt the rest of our social security provision round it. We may have to make far-reaching changes. The corollary of equal pay is that there should be equal treatment in all respects in employment. We are dealing with some inequalities in the Anti-Discrimination Bill and we should be dealing with others in this Bill. Part of that equal treatment must be the equal shouldering of responsibility.
In an effort to convince hon. Gentlemen on the Government benches what it is that women of all classes, all levels of society and all party political points of view are trying to say I will quote an extract from the document that was circulated to members of the Standing Committee by the Women's National Commission to which so much reference has been made, rightly, because it is the most representative women's organisation in the land. That is why the Govern-

ment set it up and are helping to finance it. The commission set up a working party to study the Social Security Bill from the point of view of women's needs and sent us the following report by the committee on Clause 2:
The committee regrets the White Paper's recommendation that employed married women should still be able to opt out of the basic pension scheme although we recognise that this view is not shared by all the commission's constituent organisations or by all members of the commission. We think this clause is regressive and consider that all working women should be treated equally. This will be of increasing importance with the implementation of the Equal Pay Act and we consider that ideally the new pension arrangements, which should cover all working women, should be phased in to coincide with the final implementation of the Equal Pay Act. Compulsory insurance of employed married women would be of financial benefit to the State basic scheme and would also be fairer to employers, many of whom now voluntarily pay a woman sickness benefit when she is not covered by insurance. In future, lack of such insurance could prove a disincentive to the employment of married women.
We also consider it important that married women should not depend upon insurance cover provided by their husbands' contributions when this can be avoided. We anticipate that the importance of separate insurance cover will be seen to be vital as the effects of the new divorce laws become apparent. It is partly for this reason that some of the commission's constituent organisations have suggested that a date should be set after which no new opting out would be permitted except for women aged 50 years or over who entered employment thereafter.
That last proposal is identical to that put forward by the National Joint Council of Working Women's Organisations and by the Labour Party's document on discrimination against women. The recommendation in that document is the same—that the existing option for women not to pay full national insurance contributions should cease at any rate for new entrants below the age of 50.
It is that simple, far-reaching principle that we press in the amendment, together with the consequential adjustments that would flow, of giving equal short-term benefits to women who contribute. That is a narrow objective within the confines of the Bill. It is all we can do within the Government's strategy but it is none the less important.

1.15 a.m.

Sir K. Joseph: I hope to deal seriously with the arguments put forward by the


Opposition Front Bench and the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle).
I entirely accept that there have been huge economic and related social changes in the last few decades. It does not seem to me—nor, I believe, to many hon. Members on both sides of the House— that because there are large numbers of two-wage families we should necessarily infer that we should treat all married women in the same way. There is an infinite variety of changing conditions during the lives of the married women with whom we are dealing. There are different relationships in age between husband and wife; there are many married women who choose not to go out to paid work at all; there is a large majority of married women who choose to go out to paid work for part of their married lives, giving it up during child-rearing times, and perhaps at other times as well.
The fact that there is such a wide range of different circumstances makes it very civilised that the decision about how to contribute to social security benefits should rest with the individual married woman herself. That is the present position. The right hon. Lady accused my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State of being timid in considering the possibility of taking away married women's rights to opt whether to pay the full contributions or not. But surely it would be far worse if the Government were to take away from them the option that at the moment they enjoy.
The numerical position is that of the 5 million married women in paid employment at any time, about three quarters opt to pay no contributions for retirement pension and one quarter opt to pay full contributions. For that, they get the full retirement pension if they have served out other contributory conditions, but they do not get full unemployment and sickness benefit.
To take away the option from married women would be a very serious step for the Government to take, even when advised by such a formidable body as the Women's National Commission. I interrupted the right hon. Lady to ask what is the Opposition's policy about the pension that a wife can receive at the moment and will continue to receive under the Bill on her husband's contributions when she reaches the age of 60 if he has already

retired. The right hon. Lady should have addressed her mind to this question. When a married woman assesses the choice before her, she knows that, without a contribution, she is going to be entitled to receive a benefit when she reaches the age of 60 if her husband has retired. It becomes imprudent, to say the least, for her to volunteer to pay substantial contributions when she may not know whether she will be long enough at paid work in terms of years and sufficiently frequently during any year at paid work to amass the contributions which would earn her a pension for her hard-won contributions in excess of that which she would have got for no contributions on her husband's pension rights.

Mr. O'MaUey: It is already the case that in the national insurance system that a married woman can achieve a full pension of £6·75 at current terms rather than the £4·15 she obtains from her husband if she has no contribution record. What we have proposed is that a woman who has only a partial record should benefit from that by receiving the pension which is payable in respect of her husband's contributions—currently at the rate of £4·15—and an addition for whatever period she works of one-third of the entitlement she has built up, which would mean that she could get for only a partial period of paid employment during her married life not the £4·15 contained in the Bill but a full pension in respect of her husband's contributions and a partial entitlement built up from her own contributions.

Sir K. Joseph: I must congratulate the hon. Member on moving in one breathless sentence and extremely meticulously an amendment which was not moved by the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher), but which is in his name. The hon. Member did it excellently, but he was inaccurate to this extent: that amendment would not give a married woman a full pension automatically. Nevertheless, the Opposition have to face that there are at the moment very large numbers of married women who choose not to go out to paid work, and as far as one can see ahead there will be such married women. How are they to be treated?
If the dependency benefit—that odious word; I must withdraw that—if the benefit she is now entitled to receive on


her husband's contribution is abolished, what option is left for the married woman who chooses to stay at home and not go to work outside? I suggest that the right position is the one we have, that the married women should be left to decide for themselves in the light of their family situation and their vision of the future. To take away married women's options as the Opposition suggest, even with the qualification about not touching as a transitional phase the benefits of those over 50, would impose a very heavy extra cost on married women. Three quarters who now work who have opted not to pay contributions would have to pay the following extra contributions. A married women receiving £20 a week would have to pay an extra 85p a week. I do not know whether the Opposition have told married women about this level of contribution. A married woman receiving £32 a week would have to pay an extra 91p a week. I think that a sobering fact which the Opposition should bear in mind.
The right hon. Lady teased the Government with the fact that while we want to have the option in the basic scheme we give no option in the reserve pensions scheme. But in the reserve scheme the woman's contributions are invested for her own receipt. It is a funded scheme.

Mrs. Castle: The right hon. Gentleman may be talking about future benefits. Under the Crossman scheme a married woman would get future comparable benefits to make it worth her while. The right hon. Gentleman sees no difficulty in compelling a married woman to make that contribution which will be a burden to her now.

Sir K. Joseph: It is a very different thing from compelling a married woman to pay substantially for that which she gets already when, because her earning career is not long enough or regular enough, she may not receive any more for contributions than what she is entitled to for nothing now.
I turn to the last point in the Opposition case, on which I do not think the Government's ground is quite so strong.

Mr. Meacher: Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves that point, earlier he indicated that, whether it is a majority or a minority, women when they collect

the second pension will still be below the supplementary benefit line. He admitted that. He said there was a dramatic reduction in the number of women taken off supplementary benefit. That implies a significant minority who would still be in that position. Is the right hon. Gentleman compelling those women who contribute towards a second pension as a result of which they will get nothing more because of supplementary benefit? Is that true?

Sir K. Joseph: No. It is untrue, because the first pound of reserve pension will be disregarded for supplementary benefit. Who on earth can foretell what the relationship will be in a few years' time between the basic benefit and the supplementary benefit scale rates, particularly when we shall possibly have such changes as the tax credit scheme?
I turn to the valid observations made by the hon. Member for Oldham, West and the right hon. Member for Blackburn about short-term benefits. It is difficult to understand why, when a married woman who goes out to work chooses to pay the full contribution and comes to be unemployed or falls sick, she does not get the full benefit but receives instead the lower-rate benefit. Although this has been the case under successive Governments, I must say that I do not find it easy to justify. It is true that it reflects the mutuality between husband and wife by which the wife looks to the husband's income for support when she is in need. It is a mutuality which most hon. Members would applaud and would hope will continue.
The situation is not always something which is obvious to reason. Even if the hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Lady are right in pointing the finger at this lower level of benefit when full contributions are paid, I cannot think that action on that narrow, but important, front would command a high priority from any Government facing the wide range of problems which always face Governments in this country. The position is less than perfect. I am not trying to evade the point.
I hope that, without doing injustice to the strongly-held arguments of the hon. Members, I have put to the House the arguments which perhaps they did not fully develop, naturally concentrating


on their view of the case. I hope that they will not feel it necessary to press the amendment. If they do, I hope my hon. and right hon. Friends will vote firmly against it.

Mr. O'Malley: The right hon. Gentleman's speech was almost a masterpiece of obfuscation. He made the issues appear much more difficult than they are. Of course it is true that there is a multiplicity of circumstances in married households but I thought it was the job of Ministers and politicians to examine such problems carefully and then propose to the House universal remedies for them.
The right hon. Gentleman did none of these things. He said it was a complex problem. He accepted that there had been huge economic and social changes in the last decade, and then he promptly resolved to turn his back on such major changes.
I will tell the right hon. Gentleman why married women should be required to pay contributions and why the married women's option should be ended. He asked whether we had told the women of this country what we proposed and what the implications were. We did this in 1969. We faced the issue and found a great deal of acceptance in spite of the mischief of Conservative Members. We faced the women with the blunt facts.
The first fact is that to the extent that married women on reasonable incomes —let us bear in mind that we are talking about not the old flat-rate contribution but earnings-related contributions—do not make contributions into this "pay as you go" scheme which is a feature of the national insurance fund, so single women on low incomes and single women on higher incomes and lower-paid men who are the heads of households are required to bear proportionately bigger burdens in meeting the cost of retirement pensions at a time when the number of pensioners is increasing more rapidly than the number in the work force.
1.30 a.m.
The Secretary of State said that the decision should rest with the individual married woman, but one aspect of society which will continue under the terms of the Bill is that, particularly in old age, there will continue to be massive

poverty among these women, many living on their own when their husbands die, and anything we can do to build up the entitlement of such women is worth doing.
In abolishing the married woman's option, one has to give the married woman additional benefits when she begins to pay contributions, and it is difficult to give adequate benefits because of the structure of the Bill, but we are proposing as much as possible within the structure.
First, we would take up the Secretary of State on the point about short-term benefits. He pointed out that three quarters of married women opt to pay no contribution for unemployment, sickness or retirement, but the reason is obvious: under the present system they get virtually nothing if they pay. So we are proposing that, just as married women should bear responsibility for paying into the pay-as-you-go national insurance benefit from which the present generation of retirement pensioners receive their income, so, accepting those equal obligations, they should have equal benefits and opportunities.
It is intolerable for the Secretary of State to say to married women who pay full contributions that they cannot take high priority with any Government. They are paying exactly the same contributions as men and single women in earnings-related contributions and are discriminated against. They are told: "You are married. It matters not that you have mortgage and hire purchase payments. You will get smaller benefits."
They are likely, under the present system, and under the system proposed in the Bill, to get no additional income in retirement at all. So, as I said in an intervention, the married woman who makes a partial contribution, even if it is only for two or three years, should draw her entitlement on her husband's contribution to retirement pension, currently at £4·15—that is one third of what they have accrued in their own contribution—so that when the married woman contributes at work she gets the same benefit, however limited the number of contributions.
The right hon. Gentleman closed by asking what option was open to women


who did not go to work. The answer is that they continue to depend upon the contributions made by their husbands in national insurance, occupational pension or reserve pension schemes.
The married women who pay contributions should, we believe, in retirement, having made equal contributions and accepted equal obligations, get equal benefits. If this Government are not

prepared to do that, the next Labour Government will do what the women of this country are demanding. I recommend that we should vote on the amendment as an indication of our acute dissatisfaction with the policies of this Government.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 119. Noes 148.

Division No. 127.]
AYES
[1.34 a.m.]


Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)
Galpern, Sir Myer
Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen)


Ashton, Joe
Gilbert, Dr. John
Molloy, William


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Grant, George (Morpeth)
Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)


Bishop, E. S.
Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Oakes, Gordon


Boardman, H. (Leigh)
Hardy, Peter
O'Halloran, Michael


Brown, Robert C. (N'c'tle-u-Tyne,W.) 
 Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
O'Malley, Brian


Brown, Hugh D (G'gow, Provan)
Horam, John
Palmer, Arthur


Brown, Ronald(Shoreditch &amp; F'bury)
Hughes, Mark (Durham)
Pavitt, Laurie


Buchan, Norman
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)
Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred


Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn) 
Hunter, Adam
Perry, Ernest G.


Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Janner, Greville
Frescolt, John


Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)
John, Brynmor
Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)


Cant, R. B.
Johnson, James (K'stonon-Hull, W.)
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Carmichael, Neil
Jones Barry (Flint E)
Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy(Caernarvon)


Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)
Jones Gwynoro (Carmarthen)
Robertson, John (Paisley)


Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara
Jones, T.Alec (Rhondda W.)
Roderick, Caerwyn E.(Brc'n &amp; R'dnor)


Clark, David (Colne Valley)
Judd, Frank
Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)


Cohen, Stanley
Kaufman Gerald
Sllkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptlord)


Coleman, Donald
Kinnock Neil
Silverman, Julius


Concannon, J. D.
Lamond, James
Skinner, Dennis


Conlan, Bernard
Lawson George
Small, William


Cunningham, G. (Islington, S.W.)
Leonard Dick
Spearing, Nigel


Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whitehaven)
Lestor, Miss Joan
Spriggs, Leslie


Dalyell, Tarn
Upton, Marcus
strang, Gavin


Davidson, Arthur
Loughlin Charles
Thomas, Rt. Hn, George (Cardiff.W.)


Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)
Lyon, Alexander W. (York) 
Tinn, James


Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund
Lyons, Edward (Bradlord, E.)
Torney, Tom


Doig, Peter
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Varley, Eric G.


Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)
McBride, Neil
Wainwright, Edwin


Duffy, A. E. P.
McElhone, Frank
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Dunnett, Jack
McGuire, Michael
Watkins, David


Eadie, Alex
Machin, George
Wellbeloved, James


Edwards, William (Merioneth)
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)
White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)


Ellis, Tom
McNamara, J. Kevin
Whitehead, Phillip


English, Michael
Marks, Kenneth
Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)


Ewlng, Harry
Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy
Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)


Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Meacher, Michael



Foot, Michael
Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Ford, Ben
Mendelson, John
Mr. James A. Dunn and


Forrester, John
Millan, Bruce
Mr. Joseph Harper.




NOES


Adley, Robert
Carlisle, Mark
Foster, Sir John


Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)
Chapman, Sydney
Fowler, Norman


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher
Fox, Marcus


Atkins, Humphrey
Chichester-Clark, R.
Fraser,Rt.Hn.Hugh(St'fford &amp; Stone)


Awdry, Daniel
Churchill, W. S.
Fry, Peter


Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)
Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Gibson-Watt, David


Balniel, Rt. Hn. Lord
Cooke, Robert
Goodhew victor


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)
Cordle John
Gower, Raymond


Benyon
Cormick, Patrick.
Gower, Raymond


Berry, Hn. Anthony
d'Avigdor-Goldsmith, Maj.-Gen.Jack
Grant, Antony (Harrow, C.)


Biffen, John
Dean, Paul
Gray, Hamish


Biggs-Davison, John
Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.
Green Alan


Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)
Digby, Simon Wingfleld
Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)


Boscawen, Hn. Robert
Dykes, Hugh
Grylls, Michael


Bossom, Sir Clive
Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)
Gummer, J. Selwyn


Bowden, Andrew
Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne,N.)
Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)


Bruce-Gardyne, J.
Eyre, Reginald
Hall, John (Wycombe)


Buchanan-Smith, Allck(Angus,N &amp; M)
Fisher, Nigel (Surblton)
Hannam, John (Exeter)


Buck, Antony
Flelcher-Cooke, Charles
Havers, Michael


Campbell, Rt.Hn.G.(Moray &amp; Nairn)
Fortescue, Tim
Hawkins, Paul




Hiley, Joseph
Molyneaux, James
Sproat, lain


Hordern, Peter
Monks, Mrs. Connie
Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)


Hornby, Richard
Monro, Hector
Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.


Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia 
Montgomery, Fergus
Sluttaford, Dr. Tom


Hunt, John
More, Jasper
Sutcliffe, John


Hutchison, Michael Clark
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.
Taylor, Edward M.(G'gow, Calhcart)


Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Morrison, Charles
Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)


Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)
Mudd, David
Tebbit, Norman


Joseph Rt. Hn. Sir Keith
Neave, Airey
Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)


Kaberry Sir Donald
Oppenhelm, Mrs. Sally
Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)


Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine
Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)
Tugendhat, Christopher


Kershaw Anthony
Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)
Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin


King Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Parkinson, Cecil
Vickers, Dame Joan


King,' Tom (Bridgwater)
Percival, Ian
Waddington, David


Kinsey, J. R.
Pink, R. Bonner
Walder, David (Cllitheroe)


Knox David
Price, David (Eastleigh)
Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester)


Lamo'nt, Norman
Proudfoot Wilfred
Wall, Patrick


Lane David
Pym. Rt. Hn. Francis
Ward, Dame Irene


Langtord-Holt, Sir John
Raison, Timothy
Weatherill, Bernard


MacArthur, Ian
Redmond, Robert
Wells, John (Maidstone)


McLaren, Martin
Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)
Wiggin, Jerry


Macmlllan, Rt. Hn. Maurice (Farnham)
Renfon, Rt. Hn. Sir David
Wilkinson, John


McNair-Wilson, Michael
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Winterton, Nicholas


McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N)
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Madel, David
Host, Peter
Woodnutt, Mark


Maude, Angus
Royle, Anthony
Worsley, Marcus


Mawby, Ray
Russell, Sir Ronald
Younger, Hn. George


Meyer, Sir Anthony
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh &amp; Whitby)



Miscampbell, Norman
Skeet, T. H. H.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Mitchell, Lt.-Col.C.(Aberdeenshire,W)
Soref, Harold
Mr. Michael Jopling and


Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Speed, Keith
 Mr. Oscar Murton.

Question accordingly negatived.

Further consideration of the Bill, as amended, adjourned.—[Sir K. Joseph.]

Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be further considered this day.

ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Jopling.]

Orders of the Day — TURKEY

1.43 a.m.

Mr. Frank Judd: At no time during the last two years has this House debated the erosion of democratic standards and the abrogation of human rights in Turkey. Recent statements by various spokesmen on behalf of the Government make me fear that those in Turkey who are actively destroying all serious opposition to its repressive activities will think that they have the support of a country which has a long history of democracy. All those in Turkey, both inside Turkish prisons and outside, who, against great odds, are trying to oppose the régime will be dismayed that their position is being misunderstood or ignored.
I feel it is up to Britain and all Western European democracies to call for the same high order of behaviour as

Her Majesty's Government maintained when allegations were made of torture taking place in Northern Ireland.
A brief explanation is necessary of events during the last two years. On 12th March 1971 the military issued a strong memorandum demanding political, social and economic reforms and an end to the unrest of the previous few years. The existing Government fell and were replaced by a Government supposedly above party politics. A month later martial law was declared in 11 strategic provinces. The new Prime Minister declared that martial law was necessary to catch 200 anarchists. Since then the military has used its powers to ban the legitimately elected representatives of the Turkish Labour Party, to ban the teachers' and students' unions, to arrest or detain in prison perhaps as many as 10,000 people, to amend the once liberal constitution beyond all recognition, to impose complete censorship on the Press, radio and television and, by all the evidence available, to torture perhaps hundreds of political prisoners.
Probably the best documentation of the erosion of human rights lies in the amendment to the constitution. By that means the Turkish régime has been able to constkutionalise and legally sanction the abrogation of civil rights and liberties. By these amendments the régime has deprived the universities and radio


and television of their autonomy. It has given the police and the military authorities the power to invade the privacy of all Turkish citizens, and it has deprived the judiciary of its independence.
To prevent opposition to the amendments five Turkish professors of constitutional law have been arrested, three of them being those who helped to draw up the 1961 constitution. The seriousness of the situation was well illustrated last summer at a meeting of the Council of Europe at Paris. The Foreign Secretary of Turkey, Mr. Bayülken, was being questioned about the situation and the matters to which I have just referred. He claimed at the meeting, at which I was present, that any academics who had been apprehended were almost exclusively junior members of university staff. He seemed surprised when told that all of us in the West were well aware at that time of the arrest of, for example, Professor Soysul. What seemed rather alarming at that meeting was the cold cynicism which suggested that we need not worry because the only academics who had been arrested were junior members of university staff, and the lack of willingness on the part of the Turkish Foreign Secretary to admit, as we all knew in the West, that more senior members of staff had been taken into custody.
Recently the régime has introduced amendments to the constitution and to many laws. It has ensured that the military would be able to retain most of its powers even if martial law were to be lifted. These serious allegations have all been made by many independent bodies. The World Council of Churches, Amnesty International and the International Commission of Jurists have all issued reports arguing that the Turkish régime is in the process of destroying effective opposition and that torture has taken place.
Apart from foreign newspapers in Britain, both the Sunday Times and Granada Television's "World in Action" have provided impressive accounts of the horrifying and systematic use of torture on political prisoners. I have seen reports from trustworthy sources that, despite the recent election of a new president and the formation of a new Government, torture is continuing.
I have no desire to make matters worse for those who are trying to resist the anti-democratic forces that are at work in Turkey. I have unlimited admiration for those who are trying to save democracy in Turkey. However, I have come to the conclusion that this House should no longer remain silent. The recent report of Professor Noll on behalf of the International Commission of Jurists and Amnesty International makes the position only too clear. During his visit to Turkey two months ago Professor Noll saw for himself that political prisoners were being tortured and that there no longer exists any real independence for the courts of law. He also became convinced that the dangers associated with the continuation of martial law are far greater than any of the dangers which it was originally claimed martial law was introduced to combat.
These statements and allegations must be investigated. If Turkish protests are to be muzzled, ours must not be muzzled. That surely is the high calling of an open democratic society of which we in this House are a part.
I believe that we have a special responsibility towards Turkey, for Turkey is a fellow member of the Council of Europe, an associate member of the European Economic Community, our ally in NATO and in CENTO, and a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In 1971 United Kingdom exports to Turkey stood at £38·6 million, and since then they have been rapidly expanding. In the first eight months of 1972 exports amounted to £37 million. Since the establishment in 1963 of the Consortium of Aid to Turkey, under the auspices of the OECD, Britain has contributed about £54 million in various forms of aid to Turkey.
After the visit of Lord Limerick to Turkey last November, the Department of Trade and Industry announced that United Kingdom entry into the European Economic Community and parallel adaptation of the existing EEC association agreement with Turkey should, by the gradual removal of the preferences which EEC countries enjoy against us, improve our competitive position in the Market.
I am concerned that such economic links serve as an implicit sanction of the activities of the armed forces which are determining the limits within which civilian politics may operate in Turkey.
I believe that we should take a hard look at what I have in the past described as the soft underbelly of the NATO alliance and that it is dangerous for an alliance forged to defend freedom and democracy to ignore its involvement with the naked or incipient forces of totalitarianism.
It would be naïve to suppose that there are not at work within the Western community forces which are determined to undermine freedom and democracy as we understand them in this House. But I believe that it would be equally naive to misunderstand the methods and techniques used by groups of this kind. One of the objectives for which they play is overreaction, and overreaction plays into their hands. Because we on both sides in this House have understood this point we have been at pains, against great provocation in our own experience in Northern Ireland, to avoid such overreaction. But the point that we have to recognise about over-reaction where it occurs within the Western alliance is that it forces, compels, frequently moderate opposition to the existing order into the hands of the extremists. In other words, it provokes what it is supposed to be containing.
There is an old adage in British political life: that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. There is a great deal of truth in this observa-tion and one of the points which we in this House recognise is that allies within the NATO alliance who are totalitarian in their political structure are unreliable allies, because when the alliance collectively comes under pressure such allies are preoccupied to a large extent in containing their internal political situations to such a point that they cannot contribute as effectively as we would wish to external collective defence.
I have said before that I am convinced that democratic institutions in Turkey are little more than a facade disguising the real source of power within that country.
I am not content with the platitudinous and naïve line taken by right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite. The Foreign

Secretary believes, and has said, that we can help Turkey return to a democracy by offering support to what he describes as "our Turkish friends" who, under the pretence of trying to destroy the forces of anarchy, are in fact destroying the very foundations of Turkish democracy. I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman is wrong. He should recognise that in Turkey, as in Greece and Portugal, to ignore is to sanction the cold-blooded destruction of those very principles which it has always been argued NATO was created to defend.

1.55 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Anthony Royle): Whilst I am glad to have the opportunity at this early hour in the morning to address the House and the hon. Member for Portsmouth, West (Mr. Judd) on our relations with Turkey, I confess that I am sad that I have heard so much criticism of our ally from the hon. Gentleman. There are Governments and régimes in the world which, might deserve the kind of attack which we have heard tonight, but I do not believe that the Government of Turkey is one of them.
I should like to stress that Turkey, as the hon. Gentleman knows, is an independent country. It is not for us to try to tell foreign countries how to run their internal affairs. Any appearance of interference provokes justifiable resentment. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman, whom I have known for many years, would justifiably resent other countries trying to tell us how we should run our internal affairs.
Our relations with Turkey, both economically and politically, are, and have for a long time been, close and friendly. We greatly value our co-operation with her in many fields, particularly in the context of NATO and CENTO and through her association with the European Economic Community. As her ally and as a member of the European Community, we have a particular interest to do everything possible to encourage political stability and economic development in Turkey.
Hon. Members should be quite sure of their facts before attempting to condemn an ally such as Turkey. Many—some, anyway—of the accusations which have


been made against the Turkish authorities are very serious, and I accept that, but they should not be made lightly or on the basis of unsubstantiated reports.
How can there be a suspension of democracy whilst the Turkish Parliament remains fully operational? In his remarks tonight, the hon. Gentleman implied that there was totalitarianism in Turkey. It is just not true. Every Government and Government programme since the Commanders Memorandum in March 1971 has been approved by the Turkish Parliament. The recent elections for the President of the Republic, when the Turkish Parliament chose a civilian rather than a military candidate, would suggest that power in Turkey is still in the hands of the elected representatives.
A date has been set for the Turkish general elections in accordance with the Turkish constitution—14th October. I can think of many countries which hon. Members have not mentioned in Adjournment debates which have not had general elections for years and are unlikely to have a general election for many years in the future. As far as we know, there is no evidence to suggest that the elections will not be held then.

Mr. Judd: Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that when we all recognise that the number of people able to participate in the elections and the number and character of people able to participate within the parliament is decided by the military authorities, with the history which I have outlined, to suggest that this is democratic is a perversion of the principle of democracy as we understand it in this House and this country?

Mr. Royle: This is where the hon. Gentleman and I move very far apart. It is not possible for us in the Mother of Parliaments to expect that every other country will carry out its affairs or run its democratic arrangements precisely as we do. Societies are very different in those countries. One must remember that democracy can be effective in a country which does not exactly follow our system. The Turkish armed forces have traditionally played an active rôle in Turkey. It is they who have been pressing for economic and social reform.
As for martial law, it has been approved, again by an overwhelming majority, in the Turkish Parliament at two-monthly intervals since its inception in April 1971. Earlier this year, in view of the improved situation in parts of Turkey, four of the 11 provinces placed under martial law were restored to civilian control.
In earlier speeches in the House I have stressed that Turkey is passing through a difficult phase. As I said in answer to a question only recently in the House, the Turkish authorities have had to deal with a serious terrorist problem. The terrorist victims have included two British and one Canadian technicians, murdered just over a year ago.
As for political prisoners, I am aware that people have been arrested since the declaration of martial law, but it is a cardinal principle of international relations that countries do not interfere in one another's internal affairs. I understand that all the sentences passed against the university lecturers and professors the hon. Member mentioned are subject to appeal, and, without knowing the facts in each case, it would be foolish for me to criticise the sentences.
Allegations have been made that torture is being used in Turkey. Again, it is always difficult to know whether this kind of allegation has any foundation. As I have said before, again in the House, we have no evidence of a consistent pattern of violation of human rights, but after all, it is the Turkish people who, through their democratic institutions, are best placed to investigate this kind of allegation.

Mr. Judd: Many of them are not allowed to participate.

Mr. Royle: The fact is that in Turkey today there is a democratic system in existence and working. I have said that this system is not precisely the same as ours—

Mr. Judd: Come off it.

Mr. Royle: As the hon. Member underlined in the important second part of his speech, Turkey makes a valuable contribution to the Western defence effort and plays a full part in the integrated military organisation of NATO.


Turkish membership of NATO is necessary for the stability of the whole southern flank. Any weakening on the southern flank of NATO would be particularly unfortunate in present circumstances. Soviet military presence in the Mediterranean has added a new dimension to the problems inherent in the area.
Western Governments are already involved in preparatory talks in Helsinki with the Eastern European countries and the uncommitted countries of Europe on a possible conference on security and cooperation in Europe. I am very hopeful that this conference will take place and will be successful. There are also exploratory talks in Vienna on mutual balanced force reductions. These developments are important and welcome, but, while we continue to work for a lowering of tension and improved relations throughout Europe, Her Majesty's Government believe that the solidarity and cohesion of NATO remain of paramount importance to these areas as well as in their own right. Although it has happened in the past, we do not think that it is appropriate for the internal affairs of member countries to be discussed in the NATO forum.
A great many changes have taken place in Turkey over the past 50 years under the guidance of successive Governments inspired by Ataturk's aim of transforming the former "sick man of Europe" into a dynamic Western society. The task has been great. Both political and economic policies have been realigned in order to bring Turkey into a constructive partnership with Western Europe. Turkey's considerable achievements in this respect demand our admiration. Turkey will

continue to require our help and support and that of other Western countries for some time. A negative attitude to her problems can only endanger that consolidation of the Western way of life which I know the hon. Member for Portsmouth, West wants as much as I do, and that is something we should help to promote and not hinder.

Mr. Judd: The Minister keeps referring, as do his colleagues, to consolidation of NATO as a way of bringing a Western way of life. Surely the Western way of life and what NATO was created to defend stand contrary to the things which are being done now in Turkey in terms of limitation and deprivation of human rights. I do not see how we can protect the things in which we believe if we are to allow a slipping away from the highest standards to go unchallenged.

Mr. Royle: I hope I can carry the hon. Member with me on this. I do not think these things are protected by damaging them by attacking them. Because Turkey and because other countries—and I do not refer necessarily to Turkey, because many countries in the world cannot reach the high standards which the hon. Member sets for what he sees to be democracy—cannot reach that high standard, surely that is no reason for attempting to undermine the standards which they have reached and are carrying out effectively.
The alliance that we have with Turkey is immensely valuable to us in the West and at all times should be safeguarded and not undermined.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at seven minutes past Two o'clock.

Orders of the Day — Second Reading Committee

Tuesday 8th May 1973

[MR. ALAN FITCH in the Chair]

The Committee consisted of the following Members:

Mr. Alan Fitch (Chairman)

Abse, Mr. Leo (Pontypool)
Brown, Mr. Robert C. (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West)
Carlisle, Mr. Mark (Minister of State, Home Office)
Cordle, Mr. John (Bournemouth, East and Christchurch)
Dunn. Mr. James A. (Liverpool, Kirk-dale)
Ellis, Mr. Tom (Wrexham)
Fisher, Mrs. Doris (Birmingham, Lady-wood)
Fraser, Mr. John (Norwood)
Goodhew, Mr. Victor (St. Albans)

Orders of the Day — GUARDIANSHIP BILL [Lords]

10.30 a.m.

Resolved,

That if the proceedings on the Guardianship Bill [Lords] are not completed at this day's sitting, the Committee do meet on Thursday next at half-past Ten o'clock.—[Mr. Carlisle.]

10.31 a.m.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Mark Carlisle): I beg to move,
That the Chairman do now report to the House that the Committee recommend that the Guardianship Bill [Lords] ought to be read a Second time.
The Bill gives the impression, when one looks through its clauses and several

Haselhurst, Mr. Alan (Middleton and Prestwich)
King, Mr. Evelyn (Dorset, South)
Lyons, Mr. Edward (Bradford, East)
Monro, Mr. Hector (Undersecretary of State for Health and Education, Scottish Office)
Stanbrook, Mr. Ivor (Orpington)
Stuttaford, Dr. Tom (Norwich, South)
Thomas, Mr. Jeffrey (Abertillery)
Vickers, Dame Joan (Plymouth, Devon-port)
Walder, Mr. David (Clitheroe)
Ward, Dame Irene (Tynemouth)
Weitzman, Mr. David (Stoke Newington and Hackney, North)
Miss A. Milner-Barry, Committee Clerk.

schedules, of being somewhat technical and complex, but its main purpose is simple and straightforward. It is to provide in law for equal rights for husband and wife in relation to the guardianship of their children. In doing so it carries a stage further the Government's implementation of the recommendations made by a Conservative Party research committee under the chairmanship of Mr. Anthony Cripps, whose report was published just before the last election. It carries out a pledge made in our election manifesto to remove discrimination against women in the laws of this country,


and it puts right what has been a genuine grievance of women's organisations for many years.

To many it may come as a surprise to hear that in the 1970s the rights of a mother over her child are, at common law, non-existent when compared with those of the father; that the custody of any child at common law rests solely with the father; that he and he alone is technically responsible for decisions on the child's education and religious upbringing and in matters of consent; that a mother can obtain custody of her child only by an action in the courts, and that a court order can be made only following upon separation between husband and mother; and that in the absence of such a court order the custody of a child remains with the father even if the parents are separated and the child is physically living with the mother. That is, I hope, a reasonably accurate and certainly brief resume of the present law in relation to the mother's rights over her child.

It may be helpful if I begin by reminding the Committee how this situation came about. At common law a father had the custody of his legitimate children and the rights and powers which flowed from custody, such as the right to choose the religious upbringing of that child. He also had the right to appoint a guardian for his children to act on his behalf on his death.

That was the position in England and in Scotland until 1886, when Parliament for the first time intervened to improve the position of the mother. The Guardianship of Infants Act of that year, which applied to the whole of Great Britain, provided for the mother to be a guardian of the child on the father's death, and enabled her to apply to the court for the custody of her child, but when she did so the court was required by that Act to consider the conduct and wishes of the parents and the welfare of the child. Despite the reference in the Act to the child's welfare, in practice the courts tended not to deprive the father of the custody, although the child might be living with the mother, unless the mother could establish some misconduct on the part of the father which justified this.

In 1922 and 1923, following the election of women to Parliament, a number of

Bills were introduced, the effect of which would have been to make the mother and the father joint guardians of their children. Those Bills were referred to Joint Committees of both Houses which failed to reach agreement upon them.

In 1924 a Bill was introduced and given a Second Reading—despite the doubts of the then Labour Government —which would have given joint guardianship to both parents. After the Labour Government had entered into negotiations with the promotors of the Bill they introduced their own Bill which retained the principle that custody should remain with the father, but provided for the equality of the mother and father in court proceedings and also provided that the welfare of the child was to be the first and paramount consideration in such proceedings. It also enabled those proceedings to be brought in a magistrates' court and provided for the mother to be awarded maintenance as well as custody.

Before that Bill could complete its passage the Government fell at the ensuing General Election, but the Bill was introduced in similar form by the then Conservative Government and became the Guardianship of Infants Act 1925. That Act left the custody in law to the father, but gave the mother equal rights to apply to the court to have the custody put into her name. Not surprisingly, that compromise did not satisfy the women's organisations at that time, and it was not long before their demands for equality were renewed. I find it somewhat surprising that it has taken nearly 50 years to achieve this reform.

In 1965 my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers), who has been a doughty fighter in this cause, introduced a Private Member's Bill which would have had the effect of granting joint guardianship to both parents. That Bill gained a Second Reading and passed through Standing Committee, but made no further progress. The only difference between my hon. Friend's attempt and the Government's proposals today is that the intention of her Bill was to grant to both parents joint custody, whereas the effect of this Bill is to provide for equal but separate rights over the children.

Four years later the present Prime Minister, who was then Leader of the


Opposition, set up a Conservative Party research committee under the chairmanship of Mr. Anthony Cripps, of which I was privileged to be a member. That committee recommended that parents should be given equal rights of guardianship.

As I said, in 1924 and at earlier stages objections had been seen to parents having joint rights. There would, indeed, be practical difficulties if by law day-to-day matters—for example, the need for a child to undergo an urgent operation— required the consent of both parents, one of whom might not readily be available. It is for that reason that that committee recommend the simpler solution of giving both parents equal rights, so that either parent could take the decision. That is the effect of Clause 1 of the Bill in England and Wales.

To bring the history completely up to date, I remind the Committee that in the present parliamentary year my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward), who was eleventh in the Private Members' Ballot, gave notice that she intended to introduce a Bill which would have this effect. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for agreeing to withdraw her Bill to enable the Government's Bill, which was then in the process of entering the House of Lords, to go through in its place. After all the causes for which my hon. Friend has fought during her many years in the House of Commons, it must have been a wrench for her to agree, in her last parliamentary session, voluntarily to give up the chance of introducing a Private Member's Bill which might have become law. That generous gesture on her part shows that she is much more concerned with the principle of women having equality of rights with men over their children than she is with any personal glory which she might have gained from being the architect of that Bill.

What Clause 1 does for England and Wales, Clause 10 does for Scotland. The effect of Clause 10 is to produce in Scotland a similar position to that in England. I hope that the Committee will excuse me if I do not go in detail through the provisions of Clause 10. I notice that the hon. and learned Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman) is a member of the

Committee. On a previous occasion, which the hon. Member for Bradford, East (Mr. Edward Lyons) will probably remember, the hon. and learned Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North claimed to be an expert in Scottish law. If the hon. and learned Gentleman wishes to pursue the niceties of tutelage and pupilage under the Scottish law, my hon. Friend the Under-Sec-retary of State for Health and Education, Scottish Office, will ably assist, but as on that occasion the hon. and learned Gentleman was discussing a Bill which the Opposition's purpose was to delay as much as possible, he may not consider his knowledge of the Scottish law as great today as it apparently was on that occasion.

The effect of Clause 1 is to give equal rights over the upbringing of their children to both the mother and the father; to give them equal rights over the control of any property that a child may have; to give them equal rights to make decisions about a child's upbringing—for example, equal rights to apply for a passport to allow the child to go abroad— and to make clear beyond doubt that decisions about a child's upbringing may in future be taken by a mother in the absence of her husband.

The Clause also provides that where the parents are separated and the child is physically living with the mother the mother has a right to the custody of that child and a right to make decisions on that child's behalf without the necessity of applying for a court order, although it will still be necessary to apply for a court order should one parent wish to deprive the other parent of his or her equal rights.

I have no doubt that parents, particularly when they are living together, almost invariably agree about the upbringing of their children. They bring into the world and bring up the child as a joint enterprise, and it is not surprising that normally they agree in decisions about the child. But the Bill provides for the case where the parents might disagree by giving both parents equal rights. That is the effect of Clause 1(3).

At the moment, if the parents separate it is possible under the existing law for either to apply for custody, and for the parent having custody to be entitled to take decisions, but in the new situation


of equal rights created by the Bill we have to envisage the circumstances in which there is a disagreement between the parents who are living together and one of them wishes to put the matter before a court. I repeat that I do not suggest that that is likely to be a common situation, but it is clearly one for which the law must provide, hence subsections (3) to (5) of Clause 1.

Section 1 of the Guardianship of Minors Act would apply to such proceedings as to all other proceedings concerning the custody and upbringing of the child, so that the first and paramount consideration in any question which the court is asked to decide will remain the consideration of the child's welfare. The court is prevented from making an order for custody and access in such an application, because that would not be appropriate if the parents were still living together. As I have said, if the parents are separated, and if one parent wishes to extinguish the rights of custody of another, a custody application can be made under the existing law.

Equally, the purpose of Clause 1(7) is to preserve the situation which exists at the moment where the joint consent of both parents is required. This applies, for example, for consent to marriage or consent to adoption. The present law requires that for a child under a particular age the consent of both parents to the child's marriage must be obtained and, equally, before any adoption proceedings can take place the consent of both parents must be obtained. It is right that the law should remain as it is to deal with those two matters. It is not a decision that can be taken by one parent against the wishes of the other.

With equal rights must, of course, go equal liabilities and responsibilities, and Parliament has not been slow in the past to accept equality between the sexes. The Statutes which place on parents the liability to maintain their children and to see that they are educated, and which require them not to ill-treat or neglect their children, already apply both to mother and father alike, but the existing guardianship law, while enabling the court to grant custody to either parent, and while retaining provisions whereby the father can be ordered to maintain the child if custody is given to the mother,

has no provision under which the mother can be ordered to provide maintenance for the child where the custody has been given to the husband.

Therefore, to ensure that equal rights are matched by equal liabilities, the purpose of one of the consequential amendments made to Clause 2(1) is to enable the court which gives custody to the father to order the mother to pay maintenance to him. I believe that that is realistic. It recognises what may be the present-day situation, namely that through inheritance the mother may have money or, much more likely, through everyday work, her income may now be equivalent to or greater than that of the husband, and it is right that there should be provision for the court to grant maintenance to the child to be paid by the mother, just as at the moment there is power to order it to be paid by the father. The Bill therefore recognises, not before time perhaps, that the principle behind the law should be that the husband and wife have equal rights and responsibilities in relation to their children, and it is that fact which brings the law in this country into line with that in the Scandinavian countries and in many others.

We all know that, in practice, the bringing up of children is a joint venture betwen husband and wife, and for this reason perhaps the practical effects of this Bill will not be great. There will not, I think, be any rush to the courts under Clause 1(3). Where a woman's husband has left her with the children and will not pay her maintenance, voluntarily or by agreement, it will still be necessary for her to bring proceedings in the courts. That procedure will also be necessary if there is a dispute about custody, or if the woman wishes to obtain an order giving her sole custody against the possibility of her husband's returning and seeking to exercise his equal part of parental rights. Equally, that situation will now apply to the husband.

Under the existing law of separation, where the wife has the child, the husband is held to be acting within his legal rights if, in the absence of any court order, he takes that child away, but there is no equal right for a wife to come and take the child away from the husband. Under the rights of guardianship granted by the Bill, each parent will have a


right to custody of the child. Therefore, if they wish to provide against the possibility of one or other returning and seeking to remove the child they will have to apply to the court for such an order. If the wife has no reason to fear the husband's interference the Bill will enable her, without having to obtain an order from the court, to take decisions herself about the upbringing of her children.

In practice the effect of this Bill may be small, but in principle I believe that it will be of great importance. I believe that it recognises, as we should recognise, that the mother has equal rights over the upbringing of their children with that of the father. It removes a clear discrimination which exists in the law against women, and in the eyes of many puts right what has long been looked upon as an injustice.

Clauses 2 to 6—and Clauses 11 to 14 dealing with Scotland—extend the powers of the courts in guardianship proceedings under the Guardianship of Minors Act, and perhaps I may deal with them briefly. They enable the court, when adjourning a case for seven days or more, to make an interim order for custody and maintenance; they give to the court power, when making an order for custody, to order that the child shall be under the supervision of the local authority or a probation officer; and they enable the court, in exceptional circumstances, to commit the child to the care of the local authority.

These are powers which the courts already have in matrimonial proceedings, and the effect of these clauses—as I am sure the hon. and learned Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North and the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. John Fraser) will appreciate—will be to give similar powers in proceedings under the Guardianship of Minors Act rather than under the Matrimonial Proceedings (Magistrates' Courts) Act 1960. The reasons will be well known to the lawyers on the Committee.

The great majority of applications to magistrates' courts under the Guardianship of Minors Act are brought in circumstances where the marriage has broken down, and in those circumstances the wife has the opportunity either to apply to the court under the Matrimonial Proceedings (Magistrates' Courts) Act for maintenance

for herself—and in that ask for maintenance and custody of her children—or to apply, under the Guardianship of Minors Act, for custody and maintenance of the children.

There are obvious reasons why she may prefer to do the latter. She may not be interested in maintenance for herself, or she may be aware that her husband's income is such that there is no real purpose in applying for such maintenance. It may be that in those proceedings she would have to show a matrimonial fault by the husband, and that she would be unable to do. It may be that she is the party who has chosen to leave. For various reasons she may wish to take proceedings to safeguard the children without asking for maintenance for herself. It is therefore right that in those proceedings the court should have a similar power to make the type of order in regard to the children it would have made had she taken proceedings on her own behalf as well.

Clause 7 deals with the point which arose when the guardianship law was consolidated about two years ago. Section 8 of the Guardianship of Minors Act, which is the consolidating Act, says:
Every guardian under this Act shall have all such powers over the estate and person or over the estate (as the case may be) of a minor as any guardian appointed by will or otherwise has under the Tenures Abolition Act 1660 or otherwise.

The joint committee which considered the consolidation Bill pointed out that it was rather unfortunate that a 1971 Act should have to refer to the Tenures Abolition Act 1660—which at one time was probably on the lips of every lawyer, but which the hon. and learned Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North has probably long forgotten—and the effect of Clause 7 is to carry out the proposals of the joint committee and modernise the law by setting out what was in fact the effect of these words. As I said, my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor shared the view of the joint committee that the law should be modernised and the opportunity of the Bill has been taken to do so.

It has been suggested that there are various other ways in which the Bill should be widened, and I want to mention two. It has been suggested, and it may be suggested during the debate today, that we should have taken the opportunity of the Bill to take in the recommendations


of the committee which reported on adoption. I shall do my best to answer any points that may be raised on that.

This Bill has to do with the rights of a mother over her legitimate children, as against the rights of the father, and we are anxious to relate the Bill to issues which relate directly to the custody and maintenance of such children. The review of the adoption laws, as the hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport knows, is de-partmentally no longer the responsibility of the Home Office but has been moved to the Department of Health and Social Security. Although I hate to rely on demarcation issues, there is a clear demarcation here. It is the view of that Department, as it was of the Home Office, that it is a report which needs to be considered and, if agreed upon, implemented as a whole, rather than attempt to pick out individual recommendations which might be worked into some other Bill.

Also, it has been suggested by the justices clerks, among others, that the opportunity might have been taken to deal with various matters with regard to magistrates' courts' powers in proceedings for maintenance by a wife in her own right, and to deal generally with what they see as lacunae in the existing law on maintenance in matrimonial proceedings in magistrates' courts. As the Committee knows, matters relating to matrimonial proceedings are being considered by a working party of the Law Commission. That, I think, follows on from the passing of the Divorce Act and the distinction between matrimonial orders in the higher courts and in the lower courts. The Government think it right to await the recommendations of that working party, although they are perfectly happy to draw to its attention any matters which may be raised during this debate.

To sum up, Mr. Fitch, the Bill has two objects. First, to remove from the law the outdated assumption that it is the husband who takes all the important decisions about the children and not the wife, and to replace it with the concept of equal rights and equal responsibilities. Secondly, to ensure that where, unhappily, the marriage has broken down and it becomes the duty of a court to take what steps it can to safeguard the

welfare of the children, the court should have the adequate and necessary powers.

I commend the Bill to the Committee.

11.1 a.m.

Mr. John Fraser: The Opposition welcome the Bill as a further step in the battle over discrimination against women. As the Minister rightly said, the Bill is probably more important in principle than in practice, and those who wax eloquent about equality for women ought to devote their attention to ensuring that the other Bill now before this House—the Anti-Discrimination (No. 2) Bill—has a speedy passage, because there must be not merely equality of legal rights but also social and economic equality, and one can be meaningless without the other.
The purpose of the Bill is to confer upon a legitimate mother the same rights in respect of the property and person of a child as are at present enjoyed by the father. It puts right an age-old inequality between husband and wife. Up to now, a wife has been treated like a domestic animal, rather than as a human being. She conceives the child, she bears the child, and she rears the child and yet, while the parties live together, she has no more rights of property or rights of control in that child at law than, let us say, a domestic animal has in respect of its offspring. It is about time that man's age-old proprietorial rights over women were abolished and women were given equal rights with their husbands. Therefore, as I said, we welcome the Bill and will ensure that it has a speedy passage.
I shall not describe in detail the consequential effects of the Bill in so far as it relates to equality of the sexes, because that has already been done adequately by the Minister. I want to ask only one question about passports. The present position, where the parties are living together, is that the husband can apply for a passport for a child and he does not need the consent of the wife, but unless there is a court order to the contrary the wife often needs the consent of the husband. What is to be the practice of the Passport Office when the Bill becomes law? Will either spouse be able to consent to the child going out of the country and be able to apply for a passport for the child, or will both parties have to


consent to the child leaving the country before a passport is granted? It is important to know the answer, because I want to deal later with some of the difficulties which arise over the implementation of custody orders.
I suppose that the Bill is unusual in these respects. First it implements one of the Government's election pledges. Secondly, it does not cost any money to implement. Thirdly, it implements the Opposition's policy because the Bill contains a recommendation made in paragraph 814 of the working party's report on discrimination against women. Thus there is a consensus on this issue of sharing equal rights in respect of children.
The Bill does not deal only with according equal rights while the parties are living together, and the Government have not lost an opportunity to tidy up the law. Indeed, most of the Bill deals not with equality in respect of custody of the children but with the tidying-up process. Clauses 2 to 6 of the English part of the Bill, and Clauses 11 to 14 of the Scottish part of it, deal with the tidying-up process and allow the court, where an application is made under the Guardianship of Minors Act 1971, to make an order placing a child under supervision or, in exceptional circumstances, placing a child in the care of the local authority. Then there are consequential provisions arising from that decision, as well as provisions about interim orders, and a tidying-up of the words in the 1971 Act which legislated by reference to an Act of 1660.
I do not quarrel with the opportunity to tidy up the law relating to guardianship, and it is right that that should be done, but I want to make just one criticism. In Clause 2(2)(a), there is a provision that a child can be placed under the supervision of a specified local authority or a probation officer. I wonder whether it is right, in proceedings which have no criminal taint at all and which relate solely to guardianship or to access to a child, that the court should have power to place a child under the supervision of a probation officer. First, that seems to be contrary to the general trend of making local authorities the main agents to take care of children. Secondly, there is a criminal taint to a child being under the supervision of a probation

officer. Thirdly, probation officers are already fully engaged on their main duties of befriending and assisting offenders. I should have thought that it was better to remove the reference to a probation officer and to allow the court to place a child only under the care of a local authority.
Clauses 3 and 4 are consequential on the decision to tidy up the law of guardianship, and I make no criticism at all of them. But there are other matters which should be put into the Bill. We have an opportunity to implement some of the recommendations of the departmental committee on the adoption of children. I do not suggest for one moment that one could graft on to this Bill detailed provisions about adoption law—because I do not for a moment think that that would be practical—but there are many recommendations in the report which relate only to guardianship and to the custody of children, and I should have thought that this was the right opportunity to have a look at them.
For instance, there are often tug-of-love cases in which a child is lovingly and devotedly cared for by foster parents, is sometimes neglected by its natural parents or forgotten by them for long periods, and then, when the child is 14, 15 or 16, the natural parents want to take it away from the foster parents. Most people feel that it is an injustice that the foster parents find it impossible to obtain any rights in respect of the child. That is an urgent matter which requires urgent legislation to deal with it.
I realise that, to some extent, the courts have begun to solve the problem. In the case of "O", a minor, whose Nigerian natural parents lived in my constituency, this young child had been in the care of a middle-class white family living in Surrey for about 14 years. The Nigerian natural parents, who paid very little towards the maintenance of the child and did not appear to take a very great interest in it, wanted to take it back to Nigeria, but the court very properly decided that it should remain with the foster parents. The court did that by the device of making the child a ward of court, on condition that it remained with the foster parents. That is the kind of situation which has arisen, and we ought to take the opportunity now to deal with tug-of-love cases.
After all if, under Clause 2, a child can be placed in the care of a local authority when its parents are disputing custody of the child, I do not see why we cannot say that when a dispute arises between parents and foster parents the court should have an opportunity to make a guardianship order in favour of the foster parents, with adequate protection for the natural parents.
The point is dealt with succinctly in the inter-departmental committee report, which says in paragraph 116:
There are many children who are not being brought up by their natural parents but are in the long-term care of foster parents or relatives. These people normally have no legal status in relation to the child, and the law provides no means by which they can obtain it without cutting his links with his natural family by adoption. They are faced with the choice of doing without the legal security,"—
and these are the important words—
which may be damaging to the child".
One ought to take the opportunity, therefore, to legislate on this matter, otherwise we shall find ourselves in difficulty in which the House has found itself time and again. In 1920, people were generally agreed that parents ought to have equal rights over the children, but because of the way in which this House conducts itself it has taken 53 years to translate that into legislation. Therefore, we should take this golden opportunity— it will not take very much longer—to do something about guardianship and about the rights of foster parents, because the opportunity may not arise again for another 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 years.
Time and time again that is the story of social legislation, but in the report there are recommendations on guardianship which could properly be incorporated in the Bill. There is Recommendation 21, that
The right to apply for custody under the Guardianship of Minors Act … should be extended … to relatives already caring for a child and foster parents".
There is Recommendation 22, that
A guardianship order should not deprive the natural parents of the right to consent, or withhold consent, to adoption.
There is Recommendation 31, that
The law should require 28 days' notice of removal of a child who has been in the care of a local authority for 12 months or more, and during this period of notice it should not

be possible to remove the child without the permission of the caring authority.
There is already in the Bill a clause which states that a child can be placed in the care of a local authority, even when there is a dispute only about custody by the parents. Surely it is logical, if we think it right to make a court order placing a child in the care of a local authority, to take up this recommendation that, when a child has been in the care of the local authority for more than twelve months it cannot be removed without 28 days' notice. A paramount consideration must be the welfare of the child, and these recommendations surely add to that consideration.
Finally, there is a Recommendation 32, that
Local authorities should have discretion to resolve to assume parental rights over any child who has been in their care for three years.
I hope that in Committee stage the opportunity to legislate on these very urgent and often very heart-rending matters will not be neglected. I realise that the report must await further consideration, but these are urgent matters which could be dealt with by amendments to the Bill.
One other matter is the flouting of orders for custody by the husband or wife when the child is taken out of the jurisdiction of the Scottish or English courts in order to defy the rights legally conferred by the court on the other parent. There is a clear duty on the Government to act to prevent a child being abducted out of the United Kingdom to thwart the order of the court. We must put an end to the hide-and-seek chases round the court houses of the world where it appears that, with impunity, a husband—or a wife—may pick and choose jurisdictions to achieve the result he desires.
The Desramault case achieved the greatest degree of publicity, and there were protracted proceedings in the United Kingdom, France and Switzerland. One shudders to think of the cost of the proceedings for the parents in that case. One has to be extremely rich, or blessed with the beneficence of somebody else, to fight the proceedings in this country, proceedings and an appeal in France, and finally proceedings in Switzerland, possibly also going to appeal.
There was another case of a mother in Devon having custody and the child was abducted and taken to Algeria. I read that she was able to charter a plane to Algeria to fight the case there, but how many working-class parents can afford to go to Algeria, let alone charter an aircraft to go there? I have a case in my constituency of a child being taken to the United States and it has proved impossible to trace the child. If the child is traced the parent who has him or her can play hide-and-seek from state to state because there is no federal guardianship law in the United States.
I raised this matter on the consideration of the Maintenance Orders (Reciprocal Enforcement) Bill, when I urged a study of this problem. The matter should be looked at again, because in these times of rapid communication, when the frontiers of Europe are being opened up more and more, it is a growing problem. I should like an undertaking from the Government that they will consult the United Nations, or at least their European partners or members of the Council of Europe in order to achieve reciprocal recognition and enforcement of orders for custody.
The court which makes the order where the child is resident should be the court whose order is observed by other courts. If one can pick and choose the jurisdiction by travelling, the whole purpose of custody law can be defeated. If there can be directives from financial institutions dealing with substantial sums of money, I do not see why something similar cannot be achieved where there are human considerations.
I am sorry that I have dealt mostly with matters which are not in the Bill, with some which should be in the Bill, and with others which relate to custody orders, but I welcome the Bill. I am sure that it will have a speedy passage, especially if the Government include the matters of custody which I mentioned.

11.18 a.m.

Dame Joan Vickers: First, may I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State on introducing this Bill. I gather that it was he who arranged for the Bill to be introduced into the other place. It appears to me, having read every word of the proceedings in the other place,

that some of the most outstanding lawyers took part in the debates there and made substantial changes which I am sure will be beneficial.
I am also grateful to the Government because this is the second Bill which I have introduced as a private Member and which they have taken over. The other was the Attachment of Earnings Bill which the Government took over as the Maintenance Orders (Reciprocal Enforcement) Bill.
I should like to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) who will always support these causes. My hon. Friend put her name to the Bill when it seemed doubtful whether the Government would take it over, and she was willing to join the battle to get it on the Statute Book.
I should like to clear up a point raised in the other place about passports. When I failed to get my Bill through, I raised the matter in the House, and on 27th January 1966, Mr. George Thomson, who was then the Minister in charge, gave me an assurance that women would be able to obtain the necessary passports and the arrangement has proved to be satisfactory. During the debate on the Bill in the other place the noble Viscount, Viscount Colville of Culross, said:
The present situation is that a child may be included on his fathers or on his mother's passport, or on both of them simultaneously. Under the existing practice, a mother who wants to take abroad a child who is entered on his father's passport has only to apply to the Passport Office to have him entered on her own passport, always provided that no objection has been lodged by the legal guardian or by a party awarded custody or care."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 20th March, 1973; Vol. 340, c. 669.]
Since Mr. Thomson gave that permission to the Passport Office there has been no difficulty in a woman, even if she has been deserted, getting a passport, and the system has worked well up to now.
There is also the question of probation officers. I understand that there is a difference between the practice in England and Wales and Scotland. No child can be referred to a probation officer in Scotland, and I suggest that we try to see that that—

Mr. Carlisle: The reason is that there is no separate probation service in Scotland. It has been merged with the local authority social services.

Dame Joan Vickers: I know that there are extenuating circumstances, but a child should never be referred to a probation officer unless he or she has been guilty of a misdemeanour.
With regard to the recommendations of the Houghton Committee, I disagree with the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. John Fraser). I sat on that committee, which met for nearly three years, and it would be a great mistake to have its recommendations dealt with piecemeal, particularly as there is a European Convention. A number of changes would be necessary in order to meet the recommendations of the Houghton Committee. The European Convention on the adoption of children would need to be modified. That would require consultation through the Council of Europe or through Ministers, and that would be more beneficial than dealing with the matter in a Bill like this.
Clause 1, taken with Schedule 1, provides for the rights and authority of the father and the mother. I do not like the words "rights and authority". Could we not have "authority"? "Rights" seems to me to denote squabbling over rights, and what we want is for one parent or another to have authority. Do we need the two words?
If parental powers are to be separate and equal, and if parents separate without agreeing who is to have custody of the children, that may increase the incidence of kidnapping. The Minister will no doubt agree that it should be an offence and an actionable civil wrong for any person to remove a child under the age of five from the custody of his father or mother without the consent of the parent or a court. The Paignton case has been referred to and a lot of kidnapping is going on at present.
Since the enactment Section 2 of the Infants Custody Act 1873 it has been clear that a separation agreement between spouses may include provision for someone other than the father to have custody and care of a minor but, quoting Re Besant, 1879 and Besant v. Wood, 1879, the courts will not enforce such an agreement if they do not consider it for the benefit of the child. However, the attention of the other place was drawn to the ante-nuptial waiver which might be required by the members of a religious community from someone who is not a

member of that community. Can the Minister say something about that matter because it did not seem to me to have been settled in the other place? It might revive sectarian litigation about authority over young children, which in England and Wales has been quiescent, while we know the results of the practice in the past in Northern Ireland.
In Clause 1(5) the last words are:
any other person having the custody of the minor ".
Does that mean factual, rather than legal custody or care? Suppose that A divorces B, and B is given custody of the children and remarries. Should B die before appointing a guardian in her will, A will be the guardian even though he may not have seen the children for years, or even live in Britain. I should be grateful if my hon. Friend would clear that up.
Clause 1(5) might mean that B's second husband, with whom the children have been living, can apply to be appointed a guardian and retain custody of the children, even against the natural parent with whom contact has been lost. As I understand it, an application can be made under the Guardianship of Minors Act 1971, but only if a minor has no parent or guardian.
Clause 7, which I gather is consolidation, is excellent.
The Minister has been clever in anticipating what I was going to say about magistrates' clerks. I received his letter only today. My secretary rang me in a panic, but I received it in time. Clause 6(2) requires the reporting officer to give evidence on oath. Thus, if there were a typing error, the probation officer concerned would have to appear in court. This provision seems unnecessary, because it says that the court has no discretion even to disregard a point which is made in error and which is not disputed by either party, or which has little or no relevance or importance.
The magistrates' clerks consider that the requirement that the report should be read aloud in every case should not be repeated in the Bill and that Section 4 of the Matrimonial Proceedings (Magistrates Courts) Act 1960 should be amended to allow reports to be read silently if that is thought to be more appropriate. This is a practical point, and


its acceptance would make no real difference to the Bill. My hon. and learned Friend might consider taking some action on it.
Then there is the case of "split orders". It is important that this issue should be dealt with in this Bill, unless my hon. and learned Friend can produce a strong argument against that being done. It appears that an order can be made giving custody to one parent, and care and control to another. As I understand it, in such cases the magistrates' court has no power to order a parent given custody to pay maintenance to the other parent who looks after and maintains the child. Surely that simple point could be dealt with. I shall not press some of the points that I have made, but some are justifiable, and I suggest to my hon. Friend that he should consider dealing with these "split orders".
This is not just a women's liberation Bill, but a Bill to liberate men, because it gives equal authority to both. I agree with the hon. Member for Norwood. I should have liked to have seen some of the Houghton Committee recommendations in the Bill, but, that might have meant that the Bill would not become law this session, which I hope it will.
Clause 2, together with Schedule 2, confers on the courts the power to order a minor under 16 years to be under the supervision of a local authority—and this is where I join the hon. Gentleman— because it also refers to "the probation officer" in respect of England. In Scotland it is just the local authority. I hope that we can delete the words "probation officer". These officers are overworked, and too few in number.
I welcome the Bill because it puts deserted women, in particular, on the same footing as the widow and the woman with an illegitimate child. Until now, women with no knowledge of where their husbands are, and who have not seen their husbands for years, have had to go to court and get custody of their children. In provincial towns this could lead to a great deal of publicity. Where the evidence can be given silently, it is marvellous for the children if that is done, because it is unfortunate if home life is exposed to their neighbours.
Does my hon. and learned Friend think that with this Bill, and with the Domicile

and Matrimonial Proceedings Bill which has been given a Third Reading, there will be more cases like the Desramault case? In other words, in a similar case the mother would not have to go to court because she would already have joint custody of the child, whereas the husband who had never seen the child would have to go to court. If the mother could choose her own domicile in Great Britain there would be no necessity for the child to be taken from one country to another. I hope that my hon. and learned Friend will say that that will be the result of the two Bills which are now going through Parliament.
I thank my hon. and learned Friend for his trouble in explaining the Bill and I hope that the Committee will give it a Second Reading.

11.34 a.m.

Mr. Robert C. Brown (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West): I support the Bill. Any Bill which increases the rights of women is a good Bill. It is a pity that in 1973 we should be occupied with Bills affecting the rights of women. By this time women should have full and equal rights with men.
I do not complain about anything that is contained in the Bill, but rather about what is not in the Bill and should have been there. The Government must have known of my intention to seek to intro-troduce, under the Ten Minute Rule, a Private Member's Bill to safeguard the interests of children who might be removed from the jurisdiction of our own courts in custody cases such as the Desramault case. I have twice raised this case in Adjournment debates, and I am disappointed that the Government have not included in the Bill a clause on these lines.
A major injustice was perpetrated on my constituent Linda Desramault by Gos-forth magistrates' court. The magistrates' decision was almost immediately roundly condemned by the Lord Chancellor, who subsequently roundly condemned it again in a speech he made to a meeting of magistrates.
It might be argued that the Lord Chancellor has so roundly condemned the magistrates' decision that it is unlikely that a similar decision will ever again be taken. In the Desramault case there was


an incompetent solicitor, a fairly inexperienced clerk and two magistrates who were determined to reach an abysmally bad judgment. In working on the case for so long I have seen the agonies of Linda Desramault and, in recent weeks, what I feared for so long, the insecurity of the child which has arisen as a direct result of the Gosforth magistrates' decision and the to-ing and fro-ing which she has had to undergo in her three years of life.
If the Government are not prepared to insert a clause at a later stage along the lines I shall suggest, I am determined to pursue this matter by means of a Private Member's Bill. It is nonsense that a Private Member should have to introduce a Bill to safeguard the interests of children and parents when the opportunity to do so is before us in this Bill.
No child in future should ever be put to the risk to which poor Caroline Desramault has been put. It would be criminal for us to allow this opportunity to slip by. All that is needed is a simple clause stating that in child custody cases, where there is the possibility of the child being removed from the jurisdiction of the British courts a stay of execution of ten or fourteen days must apply. That would give the necessary time for the parent to prevent the child from being whisked away to a foreign country. That is all I ask. I know the strong arguments about the Lord Chancellor's condemnation of the Desramault decision, but if there is the tiniest possibility of another poor little individual being put at the same risk as Caroline Desramault we shall be failing in our duty if we do not take this opportunity to prevent that from ever happening again.

11.38 a.m.

Mr. David Weitzman: I am tempted to accept the implied invitation of the Minister of State to delve into the law of Scotland, but I shall resist that, especially in view of the absence of the Undersecretary of State.
The Minister gave us a detailed and good account of the history and development of this situation. He tried to take credit for the Bill having derived from a Conservative Report "Fair Shares for the Fair Sex" and from the Tory manifesto

but, like all useful legal measures, the Bill can claim parentage from both political parties, not only from "Fair Shares for the Fair Sex" but also from a document called "Discrimination against Women" issued by the Labour Party, which is largely to the same effect.
The Bill, which makes for equality between husband and wife in the guardianship of children and enables disputes about children to be submitted to the courts without the necessity for the separation of the parents, is a useful measure, but its importance does not appear to be recognised by the Women's Lib movement, from which I have heard no ecstatic welcome for it.
In introducing the Bill in another place, the Minister of State spoke almost apologetically of the indigestible appearance of the measure. To a layman—and possibly even to a lawyer—the Bill appears to be a mass of verbiage. I have often critici-cised the detailed, involved and almost incomprehensible language in which our Acts are couched, yet the draftsmen continue to use such incomprehensible language. I suppose that a lawyer should not complain, but it is a pity that our laws are not framed in simple language.
I can point to dozens of examples in the Bill where the most involved language is used. Often there are included quite unnecessary words, presumably ex abundanii cautela.
There were criticisms in another place of Clause 1 (2) by the noble Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale. The Subsection says:
An agreement for a man or woman to give up in whole or in part, in relation to any child of his or hers, the rights and authority referred to in subsection (1) above shall be unenforceable, except that an agreement made between husband and wife which is to operate only during their separation while married may, in relation to a child of theirs, provide for either of them to do so; but no such agreement between husband and wife shall be enforced by any court if the court is of opinion that it will not be for the benefit of the child to give effect to it.
The noble Lord was successful in having deleted from the mass of verbiage the reference originally contained in the Bill to ante-nuptial agreements. The noble Lord was right in saying that the cardinal principle is the welfare of the child, and that subsection (2) is unnecessary and should be deleted. I hope that in Committee something might be done about that.
On Clause 2, I emphasise what my hon. Friend the Member for Norwood (Mr. John Fraser) said. The clause gives power to the court to order a minor under the age of 16 to be placed under the supervision of a local authority or a probation officer. It is a criticism that a criminal matter is not involved here. I read with admiration the words quoted in another place from the speech made by the Minister of State to the Association of Children's Officers, when he spoke of the increasing burden being placed on probation officers. Because of the greater resources of the social services of local authorities the duty imposed by the clause should be confined to local authorities and should not be placed on probation officers.
I should like to add a word or two to what my hon. Friend the Member for Norwood said about the provisions that are not contained in the Bill. There is a great deal of force in what the Minister said about the difficulty of inserting into the Bill, for example, provisions relating to illegitimate children. I was interested in what my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Mr. Robert C. Brown) said about the stay of execution, and I hope that the insertion of such a provision may be considered.
My hon. Friend the Member for Norwood made a powerful speech about the recommendations of the departmental committee. The importance of his point is that we criticised these matters many years ago. It has taken more than 50 years to introduce this comparatively small but useful measure. Why can we not now take this opportunity of examining these provisions carefully and of seeing whether some of the useful recommendations which have been made can be inserted in the Bill? I strongly support my hon. Friend's plea.
I was glad to see that, in the interests of my long-suffering sex, equal rights on the part of married women are to be matched by equal liabilities. I very much support the Bill.

11.46 a.m.

Mr. Edward Lyons: I congratulate the Minister on promoting the Bill. Last year I asked him in the House whether he would introduce legislation to this effect. He then promised to do so, assuring us that it would be in

this session. That promise has certainly been honoured.
I also welcome the formula that the rights of women should be equal, but separate rather than joint, which could produce a great many complications.
As has been said, it has for a long time been obvious that women are discriminated against in respect of their children. It has been a monstrous obser-vancy of our law for many years that women have had no rights whatsoever in respect of their children in the absence of a court order, whereas a husband, however little his interest in and however much his disinclination to be bothered with his child, has had full custodial rights in the absence of a court order.
I also welcome the quid pro quo to the males of our society, in that in future they can seek to obtain maintenance for their children—

Dame Joan Vickers: They can now.

Mr. Lyons: —from the mothers of those children, although one appreciates that this will seldom be invoked. Because of the growth of sexual equality, because of the growing number of women occupying positions of responsibility and because of the growing number of professional women and women who have inherited wealth, this is a useful step.

Dame Joan Vickers: They can do it now. This is nothing new. It can be done under previous Acts.

Mr. Lyons: I shall take guidance from the Minister about that, but I have never known of a claim by a husband for maintenance for a child. A husband can claim maintenance for himself from his estranged wife, but I was not aware that he could claim maintenance for a child from her. If that is so, provision in the Bill seems otiose. I can hardly imagine that it is so. However, no doubt the Minister will deal with that. I think that the hon. Lady is in some confusion.

Dame Joan Vickers: I am not.

Mr. Lyons: The question of a woman's right to obtain a passport for her child has been raised from time to time. We are told that the practice has recently been changed in that regard. As I recollect it, the passport application form.


contains no suggestion whatever that a woman has a right to have her child included on her passport. It may be that the Foreign Office—or the Home Office —now permits children to be put on to their mother's passport on her application, but that is a secret largely within Whitehall. I doubt whether there are 10 solicitors in Britain who are aware of this change of practice. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Colville of Culross said in Committee in the other place that that was not the practice at the time of a ministerial reply five years ago.
Now there has been a change in the practice, but it is not enshrined in any legislation, and no one knows about it. The way to let people know about it is to put it in an Act or, alternatively, to put it on the passport application form. Busy solicitors cannot be expected to know everything. The noble Lord, Lord Colville is a brilliant lawyer but on Second Reading he was not aware that mothers have rights in respect of their children being included on their passports. He had to make inquiries of his civil servants. If he did not know, what possible hope is there that solicitors will know of this when they are advising clients? I do not believe that at present one woman in this country is aware of this change in practice.
There has been correspondence in The Times recently about discrimination against women in relation to the inclusion of children on their passports, clearly in relation to the change of governmental attitude. Something should be done to publicise this change. As a first step, the passport application form should be changed. As I recollect it, that form contains a section dealing with the insertion of children on the father's passport, but there is no suggestion that a mother has similar rights.
There has been reference this morning to children who are taken abroad by a parent without the consent of the parent remaining here. Many Members of Parliament have had cases where constituents have complained about the difficulties of rescuing children who are abroad. I understand that legal aid is not provided for proceedings undertaken abroad for this purpose. If that is so, that is something which might usefully be altered without great cost to the Government.
The housewife has no possibility of raising the funds for pursuing her action abroad, except with the assistance of newspapers in remarkable cases. It would be useful if legal aid could be extended within narrow terms to cover this situation. With a growing cosmopolitan society in Britain and the shrinking of the world, there will be many of these cases. The present machinery for ensuring that children are kept in the country unless both parents consent to their going abroad is inadequate.
It is curiosity about the new Foreign Office procedure in relation to passports that, in addition to the father being able to take the child out of the country without his wife's permission, in future the mother is able to take the child out without the husband's permission—unless either parent has foreseen the situation and has obtained a court order or taken some other action of that sort to prevent that. In future there will be instances of women taking their children out of the jurisdiction without their husband's authority. There is, therefore, equality of injustice here. Previously only the father could do this, but now we are saying that the mother can take the child out of the country without the consent of the father. That is a curious kind of equality which we are promoting. There ought to be an examination now in relation to the right to take children out of the jurisdiction on the say-so of one parent.
It could be argued that the Government have not met the objection about passports. All that the Government have said is not that both parents should consent, but that either can take the child abroad unless there has been a court order or some preliminary action of that sort. The trouble about a woman taking preliminary action is that she often does not know that she has the right to do so.
I make those points in reservation, but I think that the Bill is a very useful step forward and I welcome it with great enthusiasm. It is not a Bill which will strike the headlines, but any lawyer knows how women suffer through an absence of rights in relation to their children. This makes a good change and the Government deserve congratulations.

11.56 a.m.

Mr. Carlisle: With the leave of the Committee, I should like to reply, first,


by thanking hon. Members for giving a general welcome to the Bill, which is important in principle even if its practical events are fairly small. This is a Second Reading Committee, but, listening to the various points being raised, I felt that it was clearly the Committee Stage. In general, most of the points raised were Committee matters. However, I shall do my best to answer them, although I do not undertake to be able to answer without advice the plethora of points put by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers).
Going quickly through the points in the order in which they were raised, I start with the points raised by the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. John Fraser) in his lucid and interesting speech. The hon. Gentleman—and other hon. Members, too—asked what the position would be in relation to passports. He asked specifically whether it would mean that the husband would be able to apply without the wife, and the wife without the husband, or that they would both have to apply.
I am told that at present the provision is very much as stated by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport, namely, that in practice the passport authorities accept applications by either party. But whatever the present position may be, and whatever the clear legal position may be—there is doubt about it —we understand from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office that, when the Bill becomes law, that office will grant a standard passport on the consent of either party, unless objection is lodged, supported by evidence, that the objector has been awarded custody or care and control by a court, or that the child is a ward of court, or subject to a High Court order that the child shall not be taken out of jurisdiction. As at present, once passport facilities have been given in respect of a child, it will not be possible to revoke them.
As I understand the present position, in practice the passport authorities grant a passport on the application of one parent, although it is not clear whether they are legally entitled to do so, certainly on the application of the mother. But it is clear that they will be entitled to do so when the Bill has gone through

Parliament, and they will in practice do so.
The hon. Gentleman raised another point, which was also raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devon-port and by the hon. and learned Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman). That was the reference in Clause 2(2) to the power to place a child under the supervision of a probation officer. It was argued by the hon. Gentleman and others that the reference to the probation officer should be removed because there was a taint of criminality in being put under the supervision of a probation officer which was not involved in a child being put under the supervision of a local authority. I have listened to what has been said, and I am prepared to consider this matter again, but I must make it clear that it was looked at and rejected when the Bill was going through the other place.
We are conscious that there is pressure on the resources of the probation service. Equally, we are conscious—it is not a departmental responsibility of the Home Office—that there are pressures on the resources of the local authorities, that the new departments set ups as a result of the Seebohm Report are not all up to the establishment strength that they would wish to be and that there is a shortfall on local authority social workers. It is for that reason that the Government have made it clear—the hon. Gentleman referred to a speech that I made on the Children and Young Persons Act—that they would raise the age when they were satisfied that local authorities were capable of meeting the job. We have recently raised the age at which children must be put under the care of the local authority rather than probation officers and we would rather approach the position by gradually raising the age.
My noble friend the Minister of State in another place pointed out that the effect of removing the words "probation officer" from the Bill would be to impose on the social service department an additional 4,000 children who as a result of matrimonial proceedings are being supervised by the probation service. Equally, by using the words "probation officer",. we are in line with what the matrimonial proceedings legislation set out. We are anxious to reduce the load on the probation service, but I am quite prepared, if


an amendment is put down, to look at it again. I cannot say more than that. I am prepared to invite officials in the Home Office, in consultation with the Department of Health and Social Security, to look again at this issue.
The next point which the hon. Member for Norwood made was the very general one about bringing in those recommendations in the adoption report which relate to the guardianship of children. The hon. Gentleman spoke of the "tug-of-love" cases and of the various recommendations in that type of case concerning the foster parent, but I think that in the examples which he gave the hon. Gentleman himself raised the difficulties to which reference has been made. Of course it is true to say that the right of foster parents to apply for guardianship of a child whom they have had in their care for 10 or 15 years appears, on the face of it, to be a simple and straightforward right—and where the natural parents are agreeable to that the Bill raises no problem—but were that right to be written into the Bill in those cases where the natural parents disagreed, one would come to the fundamental issue of the adoption law as to what should be the rights of natural parents over children, as against those of long-term foster parents.
The issue opens up a wide area of debate which is by no means lacking in controversy. That is why all the recommendations in the adoption report must be looked at as a whole, rather than that we should take individual points and say, "This deals with guardianship, we will slip it into the Guardianship Act". It is interesting to note that my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport—and the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse), who is not present today—has not herself pressed this on the Government, although I am aware that the points made by the hon. Member for Norwood have been made by various outside bodies. I do not think that it would be right to deal with this issue at this time, but I point out to the hon. Gentleman that under the 1971 Act, as amended by the Bill, the courts can grant custody to a foster parent or to any other person. It is only the parent who can apply for custody, although the court on that application can grant it to the foster parent.
My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport, referred to the fact that in South Scotland a child cannot be put in the care of a probation officer. The reason is that in Scotland there is no separate probation service. It is merged in the local authority, which means that in these as well as in criminal cases the child is committed to the care of the local authority.
Coming to the Desramault case, I am afraid that I have to disappoint my hon. Friend and, indeed, the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Mr. Robert C. Brown), when I say that the Bill does not affect the Desramault case, and perhaps I may explain why. First, if the parties are separated and are in dispute over the custody of the child, if one party wishes to extinguish the rights of the other an application will still have to be made to the courts. Secondly, in any event the application in the Desramault case was made not under the Guardianship of Minors Act, but under the Matrimonial Proceedings Act. It was an application by the wife for maintenance for the child and, I think, for maintenance for herself.
It is true that the Bill, had it been an Act, would have provided for Mrs. Desramault equal custody of that child so that she would not have had to apply to the court for custody as such, but if she had wished to apply for maintenance for the child from her husband she would still, unless it was being paid voluntarily —and it was not—have had to apply to the court for such maintenance. On the application going to the court the court has the power, and it will continue to have it, to grant custody to either parent. The Bill does not affect the rights of the court on any application, so even under this Bill there is no doubt that Mrs. Desramault would have had to make application to the court.
The hon. Member for Norwood raised the matter of the reciprocal enforcement of custody orders. I must tell the hon. Gentleman that we have looked at this. The real difficulty is that many other jurisdictions do not, as we do in this country, have the fundamental concept that in deciding the custody of children the welfare of the child is paramount, and this raises difficulty for the enforcement of custody order in this country of orders


made in another country where the interests of the child are not paramount.
Suppose a husband obtains an order for custody in a country where he is entitled to custody as such, and the wife comes to this country. It would be difficult to ask the courts of this country to enforce this order because it was clear to them that the wife, rather than the father, should have custody. There are difficulties about this, and we cannot avoid them by unilaterally legislating in this country.
This matter was raised at the European Ministers of Justice meeting last year— I think by the Austrian delegate. On that occasion my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor and also the representative from France, spoke strongly on this matter, and it was agreed that, through the Council of Europe, the issue should be looked at as it related to European countries, and various solutions were put forward. There are difficulties, but we would insist that the courts should be concerned with the welfare and interests of the child.
As I am on the Desramault case, let me come to the point made by the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne about an automatic stay of execution. As he knows, the court has the right and the power to make a stay of execution should it wish to do so. It sounds, on the face of it, attractive to say that the court must give a stay of execution if there is the possibility of a child being taken out of its jurisdiction, but if that is done it will apply even in cases where there is no dispute between the parents. It may be that the mother who wishes to go abroad applies for custody, and the husband is willing that she should have it, but she would be prevented from taking the child abroad.
I shall not attempt to distribute blame, but will merely repeat the factual matter on which the hon. Gentleman commented. The solicitor acting for Mrs. Desramault did not make an application to the court, as she could have done, for a stay of execution to be made pending an appeal. I am not sure whether an automatic stay of execution is the right way to approach it. Secondly, if, under this Bill, the procedure would apply only to guardianship cases, it would not apply to the equal

or more prevalent application which is made under the Matrimonial Proceedings Act on behalf of the wife and children.
The best set of laws cannot always prevent kidnapping or the removal of children from the jurisdiction of a court. Therefore, anxious and desirous as we are to avoid the tragedy of incidents such as the Desramault case, I am not sure that the matter could be done as simply as the hon. Gentleman suggests.
My hon. Friend the Member for Devonport raised the question of the kidnapping of children. I must have notice of that question. It is an offence to kidnap a child, and I am not sure whether that offence would not apply against the party who had not the custody of the child.
My hon. Friend also asked about antenuptial settlements, and the hon. and learned Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North asked about Clause 1(2). I said nothing about that subsection because I hoped that if I said nothing about it at this stage no one else would say anything either. I must tell the hon. and learned Gentleman, who suggested that the simple answer was to remove Clause 1(2), that if it were omitted it is doubtful whether separation agreements would be enforceable.
Lord Simon thinks that in the new situation created by Clause 1(1) such agreements would be enforceable anyway without the necessity for Clause 1(2) but, that, with respect to the noble Lord, we consider is debatable and depends on the view that one takes on the basis of the common law rule which invalidates agreements for giving up the custody of children, and it would be wrong, therefore, to leave the legal decision of separation agreements uncertain. We may come back to that at a later stage, and I hope then to be able to give the hon. and learned Gentleman a slightly longer explanation. As I understand it, Clause 1(2) states that agreements to give up custody rights over children shall be unenforceable except in certain circumstances, and the whole issue is whether or not ante-nuptial agreements are included. Perhaps I may make one other general point on the calling of probation officers under Clause 6(2), and on split orders.
We do not dispute the merits of the argument which the justices' clerks have


put forward, but it would clearly not be sensible to amend the guardianship law without at the same time amending the equivalent section of the Matrimonial Proceedings (Magistrates' Courts) Act 1960. To amend proceedings under that Act would be outside the scope of the Bill, and if we made the amendments for which my hon. Friend asked a probation officer would not need to be called in guardianship proceedings, but he would still have to be called in proceedings brought under the Matrimonial Proceeding (Magistrates' Courts) Act. As I said, the whole question of matrimonial proceedings is being looked at by the working party of the Law Commission, but I can give the assurance that we shall draw these matters specifically to its attention.
I am sure that I am right in saying that the same position applies in the case of the split order. It is true that there is no power to order maintenance to be paid to the person who has the care and control when the custody rests in the other parent, but if we made the amendments asked for we should be in the position that there would be power if guardianship proceedings were taken, but not if matrimonial proceedings were taken. Therefore, it is better that we should look at the whole matter.
My hon. Friend, and the hon. Member for Bradford, East (Mr. Edward Lyons), asked whether there is power to order a wife to pay maintenance to her husband in respect of a child. I bow to my hon. Friend's tremendous knowledge of all the details of the law of guardianship, but I am bound to say that on this occasion I come down on the side of the hon. Member for Bradford, East, in saying that the provisions of this Bill are not otiose. The position is that if proceedings are brought under the Matrimonial Proceeding (Magistrates' Courts) Act and the court grants the children to the husband, it can order the wife to pay maintenance, but if the proceedings are brought under the Guardianship of Minors Act 1971, the Bill makes it absolutely clear that an order for maintenance of the children can be made only against the husband in favour of the wife. It is therefore necessary to amend that part of the Bill to bring proceedings under the Guardianship of Minors Act into line with what, as my hon. Friend rightly said, has applied

since 1960 in respect of the Matrimonial Proceedings (Magistrates' Courts) Act.
I do not know, Mr. Fitch, whether I have answered all the points that were made. My hon. Friend asked whether the words
having the custody of the minor 
in Clause 1(5) referred to physical or legal custody. Having looked quickly at them, there is no doubt in my mind that those words must mean custody granted by a court order. The hon. Member for Bradford, East asked about legal aid in foreign proceedings. At the moment, legal aid does not apply to proceedings abroad, and I cannot hold out any promise that it will do so. Granting legal aid in proceedings abroad for actions relating to custody of children would raise issues going far beyond the scope of the guardianship law. It could hardly be introduced in a side way into this Bill. For one thing, it would require a money resolution, which is not attached to this Bill.

Mr. Lyons: I was not suggesting that it could come within the purview of this Bill. I was hoping the hon. and learned Gentleman would say that his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was looking at this problem with a benign eye, since there will be many cases in which women will have no chance of pursuing their children abroad unless they get financial assistance from the State.

Mr. Carlisle: I shall draw the hon. Gentleman's views to the eyes of my colleagues in the Treasury, which I think are probably more important, and, equally, to those of my noble Lord, the Lord Chancellor, since this is a civil matter and the Lord Chancellor is responsible for civil legal aid.
My final comment is that I am grateful for the general welcome which the Bill has been given. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Norwood and the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North both made the point that it was all very well for me to say that the Bill is the result of a recommendation by a Conservative Party Committee, but that it is equally Labour Party policy. All I can say is that the difference between the two Governments is that we not only made this our policy, but have got things done about it.

Dame Joan Vickers: We must be fair about this. It was the Labour Government which made me bring my Bill through and got it to Report stage, and it was the Conservatives who brought in 40 Members and talked me out.

Mr. Carlisle: I am aware that my hon. Friend is right. That is why it is unwise to leave these matters to Private Members. Both parties can claim to be sires of this Bill, but the difference is that the Conservative Party has chosen to give birth to a live baby.
I have great pleasure, therefore, in again commending this Bill to the Committee, but before we adjourn may I thank you, Mr. Fitch, for presiding over the Committee today. I do not pretend that you have had an arduous task or that your powers of authority and leadership have been put greatly to the test, but I hope that you have found it in-

THE FOLLOWING MEMBERS ATTENDED THE COMMITTEE:


Fitch, Mr. Alan (Chairman)
Haselhurst, Mr.


Brown, Mr. Robert C.
King, Mr. Evelyn


Carlisle, Mr.
Lyons, Mr. Edward


Cordle, Mr.
Monro, Mr.


Dunn, Mr.
Vickers, Dame Joan


Ellis, Mr.
Walder, Mr. David


Fraser, Mr. John
Ward, Dame Irene


Goodhew, Mr.
Weitzman, Mr.

teresting, and certainly it has been a pleasure to have you in the Chair.

Mr. Fraser: I should like to associate myself and this side of the Committee with those remarks. You, Mr. Fitch, are a very suitable guardian to have custody of our proceedings. You have maintained equal rights between the parties, and we have all been very glad to submit to your jurisdiction.

The Chairman: I thank hon. Members for those kind remarks.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the Chairman do now report to the House that the Committee recommend that the Guardianship Bill [Lords] ought to be read a Second time.

Committee rose at twenty-four minutes past Twelve o'clock.